The village leaf removal program we now have is one of the most cost-effective and popular programs Oak Park provides. Gutting it transfers the cost to us homeowners, a massive transfer of cost and labor, basically a tax increase under the guise of ecology and cost savings for the village.
Here is why it is a bad idea:
1) Bagging leaves is difficult and labor intensive, the least effective way to do it. The bags are costly and we the homeowners would bear that cost, plus the effort in time that could be spent doing better things, not to mention stamina at my age which I have less and less of.
2) Cost increase if you have a yard service. They are not going to take those leaves away for free. So expect an increase in your fees there.
3) From 30-40% of the leaves are from village-owned tree lawns and parkways. Am I supposed to bag those also, basically passing that village leaf removal cost to me the homeowner?
4) Just mulch them all? Chew them up and leave them on your lawn? A really bad idea if you want any kind of lawn. The fact is that all those leaves create so much mulch you cannot use it all. And year after year it will continue to build up. I do this but there are just too many leaves to use all of them.
Why is the village doing this?
- Bob Sproule, public works director, wants it out of his budget. He lives in another suburb and they bag their leaves and he says it works fine.
- Someone parked over a pile of leaves and their car burned up.
- Two kids playing in a leaf pile were almost run over by a car.
- Leaf piles obstruct intersections (Lake Shore Recycling (LRS) could push them to the center of the block and collect them there).
So we get a stream-of-consciousness reasoning at the board meeting in November and again last week about why we need to end the program. End a popular and efficient village program just like that. Not so much consideration about the homeowners who will have to live with this decision forever.
So if that has to be, in the name of efficiency and cost reduction, trustees Lucia Robinson, Susan Buchanan, and Brian Shaw should put that into their campaign literature when they seek re-election and see how popular their position is.
Charles Chauncey Wells
Oak Park