Staff
Limited manpower and the dumping of household waste are the two reasons why the town has locked some of its garbage bins at local parks.
Several recent public comments prompted Operations and Facilities manager Doug Brown to explain the town’s rationale.
Bins in higher-traffic areas, such as along the riverfront and at Lions Park, are open.
Others, however, are locked—such as most of the ones at the Point and all at Legion Park, which have been closed for the season (i.e., the bathrooms are closed and the swings put away).
Three near the parking area at Point Park remain open, but the ones at Seven Oaks are not.
“The reasons why we close the ones that are on the outskirts is because people put domestic waste in there,” said Brown.
“They’ve taken garbage from home and instead of putting a bag tag on it, put it in our garbage cans,” he noted.
“They’re creating work for us.”
Once falls arrives, the town also is running “a skeleton crew” in its Parks department.
Because of this, the town locks the bins and gets the parks ready for winter shortly after Thanksgiving.
“I know that winter has held off,” said Brown. “But once we start making ice rinks and do burials and we plow snow, we don’t have the staff to empty garbage cans.
“And the garbage is coming from households,” he stressed.
“It’s a deterrent to us to keep them open.
“If we could keep them open and people could live by the law, I’d be okay with it,” Brown added. “But they’re not.
“I think people should just use the main ones that are open,” he remarked, noting the bins are made for dog waste, coffee cups, and the like, not bags of household garbage.
