Only minor changes planned for leaf pickup in Geneva this fall

Geneva's leaf pickup service probably won't change much this fall.

The Geneva city council voted 8-2 to keep things mostly as they are: Two guaranteed pickups in three zones - A, B and C - from mid-October until the end of November. In December, residents can put leaves in yard waste bags for free pickup. During the rest of the year, residents will have to put a yard waste sticker on the bag.

The city will reconfigure Zones B and C, because the town's youngest subdivisions - concentrated in Zone C - are starting to produce more leaves and it has taken more than one week to get through the zone.

The city has had problems with leaf pickup the last two years, with leaves remaining along curbsides into spring. The trucks used for leaf vacuuming also are used for snowplowing. The leaves fell late in 2007, and early snows brought an end to leaf pickup by Dec. 1 in both 2007 and 2008.

There are still frozen piles of leaves in Zone B, the last zone on the schedule. They will be picked up in the spring. The zones are rotated each year.

"The program was never intended to collect 100 percent of the leaves," LeMaire said. It was designed to discourage residents from burning leaves illegally, when leaf-burning was first outlawed.

One other concern is that over the last 18 years, people have grown used to the city's supplemental third pickup in December. It was never guaranteed, and always dependent upon weather. Last year, the city decided to offer the free bag program instead.

"Unfortunately, I think a lot of the residents got used to that third pickup and did not bag," said public works superintendent Dan Dinges.

He and streets superintendent Steve LeMaire presented a variety of options to the council, including hiring an outside company to vacuum the leaves; adding overtime to the budget to ensure all zones get two pickups done or dropping the program altogether and having residents bag leaves and put yard-waste stickers on them. Alderman Dorothy Flanagan proposed allowing some overtime money to have employees work the Saturday after Thanksgiving, to make sure all leaves are picked up. The council voted that down 7-3.

"I hope we spend as much time tonight talking about our financial reports as we did about leaves," Alderman Ray Pawlak said after 90 minutes on the topic.