Greensboro has backed off implementing a $25 fine for having garbage cans on the street for more than 24 hours, which is good because there appears to be a lot of misinformation about the ordinance the city plans to enforce.
Field Operations Director Julio Delgado said that there would be a 120-day moratorium on fining residents $25 for having their garbage and recycling cans on the street for more than 24 hours at the Thursday, June 30 City Council work session.
Delgado said, “The intent of this program is not to punish people. It’s not to go against a person who puts their trash can out five or six hours before because they have to go to work.”
Delgado said that the 120-day moratorium was needed for an education program for residents.
From what Delgado said, what councilmembers said during the work session and the information provided by the city, it appears some education is needed for the city staff and City Council on the ordinance that the city is planning to enforce with a $25 fine.
The city ordinance Chapter 25, Article II, Sec. 25-13 (d) “Removal of containers following collection” states, “(1) All containers or carriers placed on any street to be emptied shall, within twelve (12) hours after the contents thereof are emptied and collected, be removed from such street to rear of the premises by the owner or occupant of the premises …”
The ordinance does not state that the garbage and recycling containers have to be removed from the street by 7 p.m. on the day of collection. In fact, to be in compliance with the ordinance, very few containers would have to be removed from the street by 7 p.m. If the containers were not emptied until 3 p.m. then, according to the ordinance, the resident would not be required to have those containers off the street until 3 a.m. the following day.
As far as placing the garbage and recycling containers on the street for pick-up, the ordinance does not state, as the city has said, that they cannot be placed on the street before 7 p.m. the day before the scheduled collection day.
The ordinance states, “25-13. (a) Solid waste shall not be placed at the curbside prior to the day preceding the scheduled collection day.”
It also states, “(d) (2) No solid waste containers or any form of movable carriers shall be placed, kept or left on any street for any purpose whatsoever on Saturday or before dusk on Sunday.”
So, according to the ordinance, if the collection day is Tuesday, the containers could be place on the street at any time on Monday and would not have to be removed from the street until 12 hours after they are emptied. Of course, unless a city garbage can roll back inspector happened to be at a residence when the containers were emptied, they would have no way of knowing exactly what the deadline was for removal from the street.
Bureaucrats in action.
Lol….do you really think staff and council can be educated on anything?
Typical of GSO Council morons.
What we have here is “a whole lot of nuthin'”.
Who is going to police this ordinance? GPD? Not a chance. If I were in the police force, and happen by a can on the street, would I check the pickup schedule for that location and then stop to hand out a $25 citation? Not a chance.
So it will be vigilante can police……
Another can washing fiasco.
So when they don’t empty my cans, I can just leave them on the street until.they do. Nice to know.
More “statutes and codes with the color of law.”
It’s good to be king!
As an 83-year old GSO resident, it i important that during periods of reduced sunlight, I.e Fall & Winter months, I can put my refuse containers out between 4&5 pm, while I can still see.
Any suggestions what I should be planning to do after the 4-month practice period is over?
Putting your cart out early isn’t the issue, it’s the residents that leave them out on the street for days on end. If you’ve never heard about this rule until recently, or gotten a notice from the City that your carts were out inappropriately, you probably won’t be affected by the change of the ordinance to include a $25 fee.
Bend the knee. Submit.
What kind of people are running for and being elected to office here? Without the reading comprehension of a sixth grader, they dont need to be handling the business of a city. Or a lemonade stand for that matter.
The irony is that over 500 city employees work on a 24-hour shift, meaning that if our garbage is collected on a shift day, we will be breaking the law by taking the cans in after shift change the following morning.
Sadly, you know the city has a fleet of lawyers that look over all of this stuff before the council votes on it. Chuck Watts, what the heck is your crew doing up there besides looking like morons?
It is a special degree of disgust I have for council members who vote for the largest tax increase in history without so much as a “thank you” or apology and then move immediately to solve the our city’s most intractable problem: trash cans sitting out a little too long. We used to have a little more sensible leadership, but those days are apparently long gone.
More obstruction, heavy handed rhetoric, burdensome over complex punishments and fines, lack of transparency, pandering to the busybody Irving Park voting block, legal mess, and unenforceable without great bureaucratic expense. Mandate Mayor and new City Manager are regularly showing their disdain for working class and elderly and infirm citizens. It would be less work to just have the trashcan gestapo pull up can for folks that need a hand instead of tracking to the minute everyone’s trash pickup schedule so they can issue reeducation, warnings and fines.
Residents in Districts 1 and 2 are the ones that asked for this. Try watching the council work session (it’s on the City Council website) and seeing what Goldie Wells and Sharon Hightower say about this issue before you post false assumptions as truth.
You might not agree with them, but before you say it’s the “Irving Park Busybodies” steering this decision, get your facts straight.
We elderly citizens are being marginalized, dehumanized, and generally screwerized more & more everyday. Everyone is being preyed upon by the Kommisars in power, big business, tradespeople, ad nauseum.
For example, on the 4th we had dinner at mom’s. As we arrived, a plumbing repairman was snaking a stopped-up kitchen sink. Mom has a service contract for many years with a Company that I probably shouldn’t name, but I can tell you that their company name includes the name of one of the STATES in the U.S. The repairman was there for 1 hour & 23 minutes. The total charge was $623.00 – labor only, no parts. Oh, I asked the repairman a few questions. I learned that he is paid not only by the hour, but he also gets a commission on the total invoice. Based on my experience, even allowing for an extra charge for a Holiday call, this should have been $250, no more than $300 tops.
Mom gets around $1900/mo. from SS, and some $400+/mo. from an old annuity. Just wait until she gets her property tax bills in August. Her central A/C will fail any day, & needs to be replaced. Owning a home is expensive. Being surrounded by predation as we are, how are we gonna make it?
Was the implementation of a roll back fine initiated by city administrative state or the product of a vote by the city council? It is my hope the Rhino Times will make known the council members supporting this burden on the working class. I will NEVER vote for them again!
While I am understand the sight of garbage and recycling containers left at the curb is not the most appealing sight, it pales in comparison with the city’s approval of commercial rezoning encroaching on established residential neighborhoods.
The new $25 fine was passed by a 9-0 vote of the City Council.
THROW THE BUMS OUT!