We agree with council member Scott Rose that the ordinance being considered for resource recovery and refuse disposal proves a number of issues.

The first is the new requirements of when garbage bins can be put outside and when they have to be picked up. As city administrator Chris Nosbisch noted at Monday, July 21 meeting, for residents in the northwest quadrant of town that is going to spell a chance that they could be dinged with municipal infractions, as their cans may be sitting in the street long after 11:59 p.m. the day of their collection, as they may have left town for the weekend. The last thing on many people’s mind is worrying about garbage or recycling containers and if they were back up near the house before their weekend getaway.

The restrictions on how soon containers can be near the street is also an added burden to property owners or renters who may think about getting the bins to the curb as soon as they get home from work, not necessarily at that 5 p.m. hour. We get no one wants to see garbage cans lining the streets or as council member Paul Tuerler noted, being blown across roads in neighborhoods and colliding with parked cars or other people’s buildings. They are like he said, a chance for damage to happen to property or vehicles.

But the issue that really is frustrating is that an ordinance was created, like Rose said, without the council deciding this was necessary in addressing this issue to begin with.

Look at the other item that came up for discussion at the July 21 Mount Vernon city council meeting about the possibility of a loading zone for an area day care. In that instance, city staff had an argument as to why they did not want to entertain that variance, and council had discussions of nuance trying to come up with a solution to the problem before taking action.

We have had two discussions on this issue at this point, with a solution seeming to be coming from city staff for a deluge of complaints they’ve received this windy year in the form of an ordinance. Part of the solution could have been getting communication out to citizens and educating them about “we need garbage bins taken back to your homes as soon as possible after they’ve been emptied because it is causing issues in several areas of the community” and seeing if that corrected the issue before sticking a municipal infraction on to the matter.

Instead, this ordinance outlines municipal infractions that will be collected on violators to an ordinance that is now nearing a third and final reading at the Aug. 4 meeting.

This just seems like an opportunity to have informed more of the public before jumping to an enforcement issue, that as Nosbisch has noted, could mean more infractions for citizens in certain quadrants of the community if this were to be judiciously enforced as written.