ATTACHMENT 1

From: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2005 9:32 PM
To: [email protected].
Cc: All Clerk
Subject: Burwell Ware's remarks on item 5e at tonight's meeting
Dear Mr. Horton,

Here are the remarks I made to the council tonight, more or less, as requested.
Please let me know if you need more information.

Thanks for your willingness to listen.
Burwell

Burwell Ware
126 Kingston Drive
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
933-5966


I do not feel that the concerns in our petition have been addressed by the staff response. The only solution proposed in the response is to buy another garbage truck at a $140,000 annual charge for new equipment and additional personnel. Certainly, there are other ways to solve this problem, and it would be helpful if the staff could suggest some creative ideas.

I'm not sure that the respondents understood the petition when I read this:
"To delay town-wide commercial collections as requested would adversely affect our ability to provide services..." The petition does not ask for a delay in town-wide commercial collections. It only asks for a delay in areas where there is a complaint, just like the leaf-blower ordinance.

I was little disappointed that the response to the petition did not include how many complaints the sanitation department receives about noise in areas where the sanitation department needs access to commercial dumpster sites "prior to vendor deliveries, rush hour traffic, arrival of business owners and customers seeking parking and other traffic incidental to commercial activity."  To be an adequate response, I would like to know how many complaints does the sanitation department receive at "certain sites, especially in downtown commercial areas, in which it is difficult to maneuver our heavy duty commercial garbage trucks even when traffic congestion is minimal."

Is this really an issue at these sites if they don't get complaints there?
Do they have a file of complaints that would help them map out the areas that are sensitive to noise?

Here are some ideas to consider. I hope the staff would develop a bigger list than I have:

--Ask the county to examine the hours of the landfill. Is there a big demand at 7:30 am? If garbage trucks delayed pickup till after 6:30 am, could landfill hours shift without incurring additional expense? How much would it cost to add an hour to the schedule at the landfill?

--How much would it cost to pick up commercial dumpsters on the weekend? Could there be a Saturday route for noise-sensitive neighborhoods? That would be a lot cheaper than $140,000 a year, and it would use existing equipment.

--I would like to know more about the safety issues that are inherent in running a garbage truck. Are these trucks of greater danger than other commercial vehicles on the streets? Should those be restricted as well? I think the garbage trucks are all equipped with video cameras to monitor the rear of the truck. Are the video systems adequate? Is there a technological fix or driver training that would make the trucks more safe?

--Are there some dumpsters that could be picked up every two weeks instead of every week? The dumpster across the street from my house could be picked up every two weeks since it's mainly full of office refuse. If the town required businesses to recycle mixed paper, you could reduce the number of dumpster collections and save space in the landfill. As a business owner who uses a dumpster, I'd be glad to petition for that as well.

While they write, "We will continue to try and minimize collection times in Mr. and Mrs. Ware¹s neighborhood before 8:00 a.m.," that will probably mean that, sometime in the future, they'll "maximize" collection times for people who don't have influence or determination or money. I'm not willing to have my problem dumped on someone else. The real issue is whether we care about each other or not. If the town wants to alienate citizens who live in mixed-use areas or those who have to live in an apartment complex, ignoring this problem will exacerbate the civility issue.

I have always believed that government should not be exempt from rules that it places on its citizens without an extremely compelling reason. I don't think that any of the sanitation department's reasons meet that test.

I hope that council will ask whether they want to deal with citizens every time a garbage truck wakes somebody up. It seems to me that this is an incredible waste of the council's time to even have to visit this issue.