With a recent proposal submitted to the City Council to increase certain city fines, including the one concerning when trash bins can be placed on the curb, now is a good time for the Council to bring a little more common sense to this quality-of-life ordinance – including making it easier on conscientious city residents.
In my neighborhood, it is far from uncommon for trash bins to be left on curbs in front of neighboring properties, not just a day or so after the trash or recycling collection, but all week long – sometimes for weeks or even months at a time. I certainly do think that the city should so a better job in enforcing the ordinance that would prevent this. And it does not seem like it should be difficult to see which properties these are.
But I will also point out one thing that needs to be made better for city residents who do put their trash and recycling bins out the day before the collection and pull them back in the day after – make the city ordinance say exactly that.
What it says now is that, “No rubbish shall be placed at the curb earlier than noon on the day prior to a scheduled pickup.”
But why noon? The fact of this not making any sense is illustrated by the deadline for removing bins from the curb, “within twenty-four (24) hours after collection.” For example, my family’s trash is collected around 5 am on Monday. So, the ordinance would allow for the bin to be there at 3 am on Tuesday, yet the ordinance currently, if strictly applied, says that the bins can only be on the curb after noon on Sunday – well short of the twenty-four hours after collection.
What would make more sense would be to simply say that the bins can only be out the day before and the day of the collection day. Or, at the very least, the Council should allow the bins to be out at 6 am on the day before collection. There are many reasons why someone would need the flexibility to choose what specific time they put out their trash bins – not the least of which, in our case, is to not have to allocate time on a Sunday afternoon or evening for this purpose.
Making the ordinance, as actually applied, work better, would accomplish far mare than increased fines and penalties ever could.
The proposal before the Council is to increase fines from $99 to $150 for each offense and allow the City Public Works Department to seize the bins from properties with repeat fines until the fines are paid.
I am OK with these enhanced measures, but only if the time allowed to have bins out is expanded as I have discussed, if the city gets more responsive when trash and recycling has not been collected and if the focus on the property owners who never bring their bins in at all.
For example, on my block, when it should be OK to have trash bins out on Sunday and Monday, common sense says that the city should check for possible violations only from Tuesday to Saturday. Better still, if they check week-over-week, and the same properties have their bins out during Tuesday to Saturday, those might be the problem properties to which they should direct enforcement action.
Of course, my block is a little more complicated because the city collects trash on Mondays and recycling on Thursdays but, even on our block, it would only require distinguishing between trash and recycling bins to enforce the ordinance as I discussed.
Another thing that the city should do better is to have a clearer plan for residents when trash or recycling bins have not been collected. The de factor we have experienced when collection does not occur of being out of luck this week (or for a four week span in the case of recycling), and risk fines for not hauling full bins back from the curb, is just not acceptable.
I have observed in recent past years that city has both failed to use this ordinance to address true, chronic problems and misapplied it in other cases. With this ordinance re-opened for amending, it is time for the Council to make sure the way that it is written and applied works for and not against good quality of life and city services for conscientious city residents.
