Pinch Me: City Worker Asks About Moving Parked Cars
Posted on Wednesday, November 28 2007 by Heather Brandon
This morning, I have been watching as a Hartford municipal truck works its way down my West End street collecting autumn leaves that residents raked to their tree belts in great, dark damp masses.
To my great surprise, one municipal employee politely came to my door, knocked, and asked if I knew who owns two cars parked directly across the street, blocking the way for a truck coming through and making collection there impossible.
Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about who the owners might be, and the man said kindly, “Well, cross your fingers,” and added that he had already been knocking on a few other doors in the effort.
For a short while, three city workers stood and raked stray clumps of leaves into a neater pile at the foot of my driveway, and I overheard their conversation, filled with insults and swear words as they engaged in some sort of relatively mild argument. My street is so very quiet, especially compared with where I lived in Springfield up until July, that I’m still struck sometimes at how easily I can overhear outdoor conversations in my new location.
We began to get the idea that the city collects loose leaves from the curb after we saw our neighbor across the street pile leaves in a great heap along the curb. At first I thought, what a wasted effort, because the leaves weren’t bagged and they would only get blown around. Then, the next day, a huge vacuum tube attached like a giant worm to a city truck came barreling through, and sucked it all up, and I realized the folly of my thinking.
At my own curb, over the weekend, my brother-in-law visiting from Salt Lake City had helpfully piled as many leaves as he could rake in a short period of time. The trio of arguing city employees diligently cleaned up the entire tree belt with rakes, and then the vacuum tube did the rest of the job, and the curb looks amazingly clean for late November. The rest of the yard is a mess, but the street is veritably shining.
rt
November 29th, 2007 at 11:51 amYou would not believe how controversial “Leaf Pickup” is in Longmeadow, MA. The town did away with it via budgeting slight of hand, and quickly sold the equipment used for it. Arguments about leaves posing a fire hazard, water drain and driving hazard (some raked them onto the streets–I guess no one thought to up the fine for that offense–never heard of anyone getting fined either) were offered as reasons for doing away with it, but some residents are mighty bitter. How interesting that Hartford does it.
Gideon http://apublicdefender.com
November 29th, 2007 at 9:47 pmWow. That never happened to me when I lived in Hartford. I just got tickets. A few of them too and they never went away.
Crap. I hope I paid them.
Heather Brandon http://urbancompass.net
November 29th, 2007 at 10:43 pmAs that city worker might say to you Gideon, “Cross your fingers.”