gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648
DURHAM -- As they ponder the fiscal 2010-11 budget, city administrators intend once again to look at changing Durham's yard-waste program, including whether the city should start doing fall leaf collection.
City Manager Tom Bonfield confirmed recently that changes will be on the table, and that he wants to see "what it would take to incorporate a full yard waste program, as opposed to this sticker system which continues to be a little awkward."
Bonfield was referring to the city's present insistence that residents wanting yard-waste service spend $60 a year to buy a sticker to attach to their brown yard-waste bins.
The system has contributed to a low participation rate, with only about a quarter of eligible households choosing to buy stickers and thus obtain weekly pickups of their yard clippings.
Officials in recent years have suggested doing away with the sticker system, making yard-waste collection universal, and raising the necessary millions to pay for it through an annual fee or property tax subsidies.
Those ideas to date haven't found much favor with the City Council.
Bonfield's predecessor, former City Manager Patrick Baker, included a tax-subsidized yard-waste program in his fiscal 2008-09 budget request, but elected officials chopped it.
But council members have signaled on numerous occasions that they'd like to see the service improved.
The most recent prodding on that front came Dec. 7, when Councilman Howard Clement pressed officials to consider adding leaf vacuuming to the Solid Waste Management Department's service menu.
As it happened, department boss Donald Long was thinking along those same lines and had already signaled his higher-ups that he "had some things he wanted to look at," Bonfield said.
A leaf-vacuum plan would likely require discussion with other departments, particularly Public Works, which has a stake because of the possibility that leaves deposited curbside could interfere with street-sweeping operations.
Indeed, the day after Clement broached the topic, Public Works Director Katie Kalb wrote Long and other officials to note that administrators have considered leaf-vacuuming several times in the past decade, each time shelving it because of its likely cost.
Those studies occurred in 1999, 2000 and 2005. The last time officials looked at it, the most likely option figured to cost nearly $882,000.
Kalb added that she worried a leaf program might undermine the city's anti-pollution efforts, given that officials counsel residents to use the brown carts and avoid raking leaves into the streets. There, they can decompose, get into storm drains and eventually get washed into Falls and Jordan lakes.
Bonfield acknowledged the warning, and told the deputy city manager who oversees the two departments, Ted Voorhees, to make "sure the consideration of a leaf collection program is coordinated and thoroughly analyzed before a budget proposal comes forth."
Administrators are only a year removed from a budget review that led to big changes in Durham's recycling program. They believe that resulted in major efficiencies, and now want to see if it's possible to build on that success, Bonfield said.
"Obviously, we still have lots of challenges with the budget," he said, acknowledging that money will be tight. "We may not be able to get there, but it's something we're going to take a look at."
