On a recent walk down my Oak Park block, I saw plenty of evidence of the variety of options we have for complying with the village’s new leaf ordinance. The parkway held many yard waste bags filled to their brims with colorful, crunchy, crumpled leaves. And there were bins that overflowed with them. And there were lawns with leaves left in place, disturbed only by the autumn wind. One neighbor chose to rake leaves into piles on their driveway (?).
Like a classic Negroni made with equal parts gin/vermouth/Campari, our block seemed to have equal parts of the official leaf disposal slogan, Leave/Bin/Bag.
I saw only one example of non-compliance: A healthy pile of leaves with a dollop of grass clippings rested curbside at the end of the block. Apparently, a landscape crew did not get the memo.
But most intriguing was an example of leaf disposal sabotage. The evidence was deposited directly on our front yard parkway.
The genesis of this subversion began sort of spookily on the night before Halloween. I had just settled into bed with a John Green book when I began to hear a sort of loud, industrial whirring coming from the side of the house or street. My first guess was a delivery truck of some sort. But at 10:30? Was it a helicopter, maybe chasing down carjackers or speeding toward a trauma center? But the sound was stationary, not passing through. So was it a spaceship like in the film E.T.? After a few minutes the sound faded and I drifted off to sleep.
The next morning we had a text from a neighbor: “In case you’re curious where the pile of leaves in front of your house came from … last night the street sweeper stopped in front of your house with what looked like a technical issue. A shirtless man exited the vehicle and proceeded to pull out all of the leaves jammed in the sweeper and put them in your yard.” The text was accompanied by a laughing emoji. 😂
But was this really that funny? Our town has been mired in a year-long controversy over … leaves. Now I have direct evidence of village hired hands mucking things up. Are leaves so scarce that the village must supply them? Why? To see if we’ll comply? I had to find out what was up, so I emailed:
Hello Public Works,
Last night around 10:30 p.m., your street sweeper truck stopped in front of our house. The driver got out and took the leaves from the street sweeper and dumped them on our parkway. So we have a large pile of leaves sitting on our parkway. I’m not sure if this is part of the new collection process, but it seemed very strange. Please advise what was going on and if this is a practice to be used going forward. What do we do with these leaves? They are not part of any of our trees.
Have a great day.🎃
So far, no word back. For now, am I left to believe there is a government conspiracy going on, an inside job if you will? Or am I just prolonging the controversy?
Or should I just … leaf it alone?
Anthony Gargiulo Jr. is an Oak Park resident and homeowner … and leafholder.