Geneva considers leaving leaf pickup business
This might be the last year Geneva city workers pick up your leaves.
The city council directed staff last week to get bids for having an outside company provide the service next year, after an in-house study showed it could get more pickups for a cost of about $6 a year per household. It expects to vote on a contract in October.
Currently, the city picks up leaves twice.
"In my mind city government is here to take care of police, fire streets, sewer and water, not picking up leaves," said Alderman Richard Marks, who earlier this year suggested the city stop buying leaf-vacuuming machines until it decided whether to hire the job out.
However, the city didn't get a proposal together in time for the tree service to add Geneva to the schedule this year.
Meanwhile, tired of dealing with questions and complaints about leaf pickup service, aldermen made sure that the rules, maps and schedule are crystal-clear to residents:
• First, check the city Web site, geneva.il.us., to see which of three zones you live in. The boundaries were changed.
• Second, there are only two pickups. "It is not intended to pick up all the leaves," public works director Dan Dinges said.
• If you don't get your leaves out to the parkway by 7 a.m. the Monday of your week's pickup, you'll have to wait for the next pickup. There's no backtracking, Dinges said.
• If you rake your leaves into the streets, the city won't pick up the leaves until you put them back on your parkway. Alderman Craig Maladra pointed out leaving them in the street seems inconsistent with the goal of keeping the stormwater inlets clear.
"If we pick them up anyway, people continue to put them out in the street," Dinges said, explaining the department's thinking.
Maladra suggested, and Alderman Bob Piper agreed, that the city could instead pick up the leaves and issue the homeowner a ticket.
Last week the council debuted a video, starring Alderman Sam Hill, pointing out common mistakes people make. It will soon be broadcast on the city's public access television channel.
Leaf pickup begins in mid-October and runs six weeks, weather permitting. After that, the leaf machines are removed from the trucks and snowplows attached for winter.
Those who have leaves leftover can put them in kraft paper bags and dispose of them for free with their usual refuse pickup in December.
Info on the leaf program is available in the city newsletter; in utility bill mailings; on the city Web site; on signs at entrances in each zone; and in its electronic communications to residents via e-mail alerts, Facebook and Twitter.