Carts staying in roadways too long
By Bert Lehman
City of Clintonville residents may face fines if they do not remove their garbage and recycling carts from near the roadway within 24 hours of garbage pickup.
Clintonville Public Works Director Kray Brown informed the Streets Committee at its May 1 meeting that the city has received complaints about garbage and recycling carts being left out by or on the street.
The ordinance the city passed regarding garbage and recycling did not include a timeframe in which the carts have to be removed, so Brown requested the ordinance be amended.
A penalty for failing to remove the carts in a timely manner should also be added to the ordinance, Brown said.
“The whole idea is to get the carts off the boulevard,” Brown said.
Brown recommended the ordinance be changed to include language that the carts be removed by midnight after pickup.
Committee member Steve Kettenhoven said if residents can put the carts out 24 hours prior to pickup, they should be given 24 hours to remove the carts.
“Twenty-four hours is fine if that’s what we want to do,” Committee Chairman Jim Supanich said. “The idea is to get them off the road and out of the way.”
The committee also discussed penalties including fines. Brown said other municipalities have fines that range from $25 to $500 per offense.
“I’m all for getting garbage cans off the street after 24 hours, but I think we better be careful on how we set these fines,” Kettenhoven said. “Obviously we don’t want repeat offenders, but if it does happen and the fine gets too stiff, we’re going to have a number of people opting out of garbage pickup, and the next thing you know our garbage rates will go up because they don’t have enough people getting picked up.”
Supanich said the Clintonville City Council would determine the amount of the fine per offense.
The committee recommended to the city’s safety and ordinance committee changing the ordinance to state garbage and recycling carts must be removed from the street location within 24 hours of pickup.