Elgin figures out how to get those leaves picked up

If you're still looking for ways to burn off some of those Thanksgiving calories and the mall is not your cup of tea, perhaps you should consider raking leaves.

You can burn at least 250 calories an hour collecting fall's final remnants for city curbside leaf pick up, which will end Friday, Dec. 5.

Leaf collection, or lack thereof, was a sore topic for Elgin leaders last fall and winter.

A late leaf drop, combined with an early snowstorm, left piles of rotting, frozen leaves along curbs across town. City leaders even scheduled a special leaf pickup for the Gifford Park area - in January.

But this year is a different story.

City leaders enacted an even-odd parking ban in four neighborhoods to help keep streets clear of cars so trucks could scoop up large piles of leaves. The city also extended leaf pickup by a week compared to 2007.

David Lawry, the city's general services director, said cold weather also was a factor in an early leaf drop, which helped out immensely.

"All the leaves are down now. The heaviest volumes are behind us," Lawry said last week. "Officially, we're on schedule, have been all season. Mother Nature certainly cooperated better this year than last year."

Lawry said 3,700 cubic yards of leaves were scooped up last week. One step that aided in garnering that large amount was the even-odd parking trial, which began in September and runs through April.

In past weeks, several people actually came to Elgin City Council meetings to praise city leaders for the ban.

Usually, when someone addresses the city, it's to complain about something.

"People are getting used to it more," Lawry said. "From our standpoint, the odd-even works really well in terms of picking up (leaves)."

RuthAnne Hall, the city's management analyst, said officers wrote up 1,398 tickets in October after an educational period in September.

But from Nov. 1 through Nov. 22, police had only doled out 394 tickets. That's on pace for 537 this month.

"It's a huge decrease we've seen this month," Hall said. "During the daytime, we're finding minimal tickets (to be written). The whole point of (the parking trial) is to improve public works services."

Residents who bag their leaves also may have them picked up this week without buying a special yard waste sticker.