Henderson City Council Mary Emma Evans made the observation that Henderson is a “dirtier, stinkier place” during a workshop session on city sanitation held during Monday’s meeting.
Evans also said that the city’s new one garbage pickup per week is harder on employees.
Assistant City Manager Frank Frazier and Public Works Director Linda Leyen sat before the council and reported on sanitation during the workshop session. Frazier introduced the topic by saying that the city had had “ups and downs” in the almost a month since the city moved to once-per-week collection.
“We’re trying to be as responsive as we can,” Frazier said.
Leyen told council members that sanitation workers are learning new routes. She also said that there is a problem with residents wanting to put yard waste in bags.
The landfill will no longer accept bagged yard waste.
Council member Mike Inscoe questioned the practice of putting a yellow tag on the door of residences with large amount of refuse that require a fee. In such cases, the responsible party is to call the city if they want to pay the fee to have the city remove the waste. Inscoe suggested that the city should contact the customer instead.
Evans said that city staff is stating that once-per-week pickup is working and then claimed that citizens say that it is not working. Earlier during the public comments portion of the meeting, Henderson residents Henrietta Clark, Iylode Coleman, and Margaret Gregory made remarks to the council regarding an increase in flies, disease, and rodents during the summer due to the halved garbage collection schedule. They referred specifically to the problem of families with children or infirmed adults that must dispose of items such as diapers as being a major factor in a perceived lack of sanitation.
All three residents reside in Ward 1, the ward that Evans represents.
Members then discussed the problem of residences with no or insufficient refuse containers. Although all residences are required to have trash cans by city code, Frazier said that he was looking at vendors to put prices for trash cans out. Inscoe remarked that perhaps the price of a container could be added to the [water and sanitation] bill.
Member Mike Rainey said that “[residents] have to make the effort to do that”, referring to obtaining trash containers.
Although Council member Brenda Peace asked what a reasonable time would be for all of the “kinks” to be worked out of the new collection schedule, the Council did not achieve consensus on a particular date. The discussion ended with a review of brush collection in the Country Club area.