KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8. 2010 / NEWS
LAWRENCE
3A
City considers new plans for trash disposal
BY GARTH SEARS gsears@kansan.com
If you're trying to rile up someone from Lawrence — you figure talking about recycling, unemployment and parking downtown ought to do it — then bring up the city's new discussion on trash collection.
In early September, the city council told city staff to come up with a menu of options for the future of the city's trash collection. In late November, the staff sent the council a memo with three main choices. Now, it's up to the city council and neighborhood associations across the city to weigh in.
"We weren't trying to generate the solution' or 'the right answer," said Tammy Bennett, assistant public works director. "We want it to serve as the basis of discussion moving forward."
The first option is to maintain the status quo, the rear-loaded trucks that require a crew of two or three people with no requirement for citizens to rent a cart.
But the other two options propose buying new technology, such as fully automated trucks with
arms to pick up carts, which typically only require a one-person crew. That means fewer trash collectors, less wages and less workers' compensation the city has to pay out.
One of the options calls for mostly new, fully automated trucks, while the second calls for a mix of those and status quo semi-automated trucks, which would mean crews of one and sometimes two.
The new trucks also touch on a topic that's important in Lawrence: the environment. Any move to fully automated trucks would require residents to rent a cart from the city. The carts would be available in different sizes — 35, 65 and 95 gallons — and would require people to pay more for throwing more away. That's a positive for the green community.
Bennett said the city heard from residents who wanted the price of disposal to be related to the amount of waste, even measured by trash collectors at the curb.
"That's really challenging from the technical perspective," Bennett said. "Not to mention that there's a real risk of increasing illegal dumping."
Bennett said the cart system is more "doable" and that other cities have gone to a similar system.
Even beyond the trash collection aspect, the city staff included possible recycling options and goals for reducing waste in the memo, which will spur debate about how the city will handle recycling.
Britten Kuckelman, a junior from Wichita, said the carts might help the environment a little, but the city should be focusing on recycling.
She said the city of Wichita collected both trash and recycle bins, and her family began throwing away more things in the recycle bin than the trash.
"People will do what's convenient," Kuckelman said. "Right now, recycling in Lawrence isn't convenient."
Also, buying the shiny new trucks comes with a catch. They need space to stick out that arm and pick up the trash, so parking zones might change, especially in the tighter streets around town.
Bennett said the city could never have only fully automated trucks,
because the current rear-loaded option is the only way to collect trash in areas like downtown.
Consider the 'student ghetto', the area between campus and downtown Massachusetts Street. It has older, more narrow streets with dense parking.
Caroline Kraft, a junior from Tulsa, Okla., used to live in an apartment near 14th and Tennessee streets. She said parking around there is already strained by a lack of parking space.
"It's a big problem already." Kraft said. "The last thing we need is to reduce parking."
She said regardless of what the city decides to do, it can't change parking in that tight area without making things worse.
While a fully automated truck could cost as much as $230,000
"That would be one place that may always have to have rear-loaded service," Bennett said.
- $30,000 more than the truck the city uses now - it would save money in the long term by saving on wages and workers' compensation for trash collectors.
average cost of workers' compensation for Lawrence trash collectors was more than $215,000 per year, according to the memo from city staff.
Bennett said most customers probably wouldn't notice much difference in service between a fully automated and semi-automated trash truck. The required carts and altered parking, however, might be a different story.
It's now up to the city to decide if it wants to start buying the new fully automated trucks, and how many it wants to buy. Neighborhood associations and concerned citizens have a chance to voice their opinion in the coming months. The city commission meets every Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.
From 2005 to 2010 so far, the
Bennett stressed that the three options laid out aren't final, or even exclusive. The city's choice might be a mix of all three, or something entirely else.
"There are tons of options out there," Bennett said. "This is just a starting point, a first step."
- Edited by Alex Tretbar
CAMPUS
Fan motor caused suspicious smell
ADMINISTRATION
The reported chemical smell that led to the evacuation of Malott Hall Monday was actually caused by an overheating exhaust fan motor from a fume hood, said Jill Jess, University spokeswoman.
KU Public Safety received a call reporting an unknown chemical smell on the fifth floor of Malott at 4:20 p.m. Monday. The building remained evacuated until about 6:45 p.m., when the smell dispersed enough for the air quality to be safe. The fifth-floor lab where the smell came from remained closed.
Two University employees had complained of headaches from the smell. One employee was transported to Lawrence Memorial Hospital and the other was treated at the scene.
Jess said the fan motor was being fixed and the lab was back open for moderate use.
Provost launches discussion board
As part of University Provost Jeff Vitter's ongoing strategic planning process, an online discussion board will become operational today.
The board will allow students, faculty, staff and other members of the KU community to provide suggestions to improve the University's academic experience.
Earlier this semester, the provost established three work groups to strengthen the educational environment, drive research and innovation, and engage scholarship with public service. These groups are overseeing issues that range from improving the University's reputation as a research institution to altering its general education requirements to better fit student needs.
"It's important to get a broad sampling of people's thoughts,
Steve Warren, vice chancellor for research and graduate studies and co-chair of the Driving Discovery and Innovation work group that is providing the discussion board, said the ideas that result from these blog discussions will have a major impact on the work groups plans.
— Samantha Foster
ideas and proposals about these issues,"Warren said."If the whole university is as engaged in this as possible, it will lead to a stronger plan that's more likely to be adopted and used as a tool by administration."
Changing the University's outdated general education requirements and creating more research engagement would have a wide range of benefits, including better recruitment of both students and faculty.
"Students are attracted to universities that are as strong as they can be in terms of research and scholarship." Warren said.
Kristin Bowman-James, professor of chemistry and the other co-chair of the group, said this discussion board will take advantage of the many people not in administration that still have very good ideas and insight on these issues.
"We hope this results in changes that everyone in the KU community feels they were a part of," Bowman-James said.
To become a part of the discussion, go to http://www.provost.ku.edu/planning/school-emphases/discussion-board.shtml.
— Stephen Gray
Doctor dressed as Elvis performs CPR
It wasn't blue suede shoes but a pair of sneakers that led a San Francisco doctor dressed as Elvis Presley to a woman who passed out at a Las Vegas restaurant after a marathon.
Claudio Palma tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal he was dressed as the King after Sunday's Las Vegas Rock'n' Roll half-marathon when he performed CPR and resuscitated another runner at the Burger Bar at Mandalay Place.
The 36-year-old was clad in a jumpsuit, sideburns and scarf for the race and may have looked like Presley, but in real life, he's an anesthesiologist.
Palma says paramedics then arrived,and the woman gave him a weird look and told him she was OK.
ODD NEWS
He says the incident wasn't the only heart-stopping one that day; he also got married at a run-thru chapel during the race.
Pilot drops toilet paper from plane A North Jersey pilot who alarmed people on the
Van Dyke
at unplanned pregnancies and the decision-making process of four women, including two KU students.
The Kansas City Business Journal, will be awarded $1,500 for her April 21 feature "Unexpectedly Expecting." Her story looked
About 110 undergraduate journalism programs at colleges and universities nationwide are eligible to participate. The Hearst Journalism Awards Program consists of six monthly writing competitions, with championship finals in all divisions. The program, in its 51st year, annually awards up to $500,000 in scholarships and grants.
Stephen Montemayor
Aly Van Dyke, who graduated in May and now works for
AWARDS
A former journalism student and University Daily Kansan staff member won third place in college feature writing in the 2010 William Randolph Hearst Foundation's Journalism Awards Program.
KU alumna places in writing contest
He pleaded guilty to dropping objects from an aircraft in a populated area. He'll write a letter to the town's mayor apologizing.
The Record of Woodland Park reports that 60-year-old Warren Saunders of Westwood entered into the plea agreement Monday with the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office.
Associated Press
ground when he tossed rolls of toilet paper from a small plane has been placed on probation and will have to write a letter of apology.
Saunders said he did the drop over the Westwood Middle School athletic fields on Oct. 13 as a test run for a high school football game.
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