VILLAGE OF FAYETTEVILLE – On Thursday, Feb. 15, the restructuring of Fayetteville’s trash and recycling collection program was discussed in greater detail on the second floor of the village hall.
The informational session on the changes taking effect this year was led by Deputy Mayor Mike Small alongside the superintendent of the village’s department of public works, Bobby Hall, and the deputy superintendent, Tyler Massett. They were also joined at the front of the room by Trustee Mark Matt, who shared a bit of info about the village’s kitchen compost program.
As far as the actual changes being implemented with the new system, one is that the village is no longer going to pick up bulk items as if they were regular trash. Now, pieces of furniture and larger items that wouldn’t necessarily fit in one’s chosen size of tote have to be scheduled for separate pickup.
The vast majority of bulk items will be retrieved for free the second Wednesday of every month, but those pickups need to be scheduled by filling out a form on the village website fayettevilleny.gov or by notifying the village office by the Friday prior to that second Wednesday.
An exception will be the charge attached to putting out mattresses and tires for disposal. Matching the fees the municipality has to pay to get rid of them, each mattress will cost $15 to set at the roadside, Small said, and for $5 tires will be picked up, but only if they’re rimless.
Additionally, residents will be charged for placing out 10 or more bulk items at any one particular time because of the extra work that would go into collecting that amount.
The village is also asking for people to schedule online or contact the village office by the Friday prior to the last Friday of the month if they’re setting out construction debris, which is considered anything that constitutes building material, like sheets of drywall.
Any construction debris generated when on-site work necessitates a building permit and any generated by people hired and paid to complete work will be on the homeowner, business owner or contractor to clear away.
Hardfill from landscaping, including concrete, bricks and sod, is picked up the third Friday of each month, and it needs to be scheduled by the Friday prior to be taken.
The village’s DPW traditionally picks up brush starting on Mondays as its employees work their way from neighborhood to neighborhood, and it will stay that way.
In November, the department will pause the pickup of brush, bulk items, hardfill and construction debris for the month to focus on leaves exclusively just like they have in years past.
Because they would no longer be stumbling on accumulations of bulk items out of nowhere, Hall said the scheduling of pickups as needed assists his DPW with route planning and gauging how long it will take to finish village-wide pickup.
The new truck the village is ordering for the job can be operated by one person, and it will be outfitted with multiple cameras and a mechanical extending arm that can be controlled to hook onto the garbage totes and dump the contents into the hopper.
Small said cutting down on manpower for pickup tasks is beneficial to the safety of Fayetteville’s public works employees because they won’t have as much heavy lifting in their day-to-day.
Hall said the five DPW employees relieved of their pickup duties will be directed elsewhere to take care of responsibilities like the sprucing up of parks, catch basin repairs, road clearance during winter weather events and sidewalk maintenance—in other words, to stay on top of the things the department sometimes would have fallen behind on otherwise.
The DPW will be collecting trash and recycling in two days rather than three going forward. Specifically, it will be that for trash and recycling separately, half of the village will be attended to one day, and then the other half will be covered the following day.
Villagers will have a choice of 96 or 64 gallons for their set of trash and recycling totes, which will be provided at no cost. Everyone is also entitled to a second pair for an upfront cost and a yearly fee.
Cut-up cardboard can go in the containers as long as the lid can close on it, but wooden boards are prohibited because even the smallest plank of lumber could get clogged and the sensor on the truck could react by shutting the entire vehicle down, Massett said.
Hall said the new trash and recycling carts are expected to be distributed to residents in May if all goes according to plan with the anticipated arrival of the new truck around that time.
The livestreamed recording of the trash talk appears on the village’s main website in the “Meeting Videos” section.
In other news
The Fayetteville Village Board held a workshop on Feb. 12 regarding what goes into reviewing conflicts of interest at the municipal level.
Trustee Jane Rice, a member of the village’s three-person ethics committee, said Chapter 9 of the village code provides “good guidance” free of ambiguity in reference to such situations.
That chapter calls for the disclosure of direct and indirect conflicts of interest that are discovered as it relates to financial, commercial and private investments and transactions, whether it’s clear-cut or not that accepted gifts, services rendered, or exchanges impair someone’s discharge of their official duties in an elected or appointed position.
On Feb. 12, the board members discussed in passing if additional administrative language was necessary as far as the standards of conduct outlined for addressing conflicts of interest and what the avenue for complaints would be if it’s determined that a legitimate conflict went uncaught or was not acknowledged as seriously as it should have been.
Matt said avoiding conflicts of interest is “vital” to holding onto the confidence and trust of the public because it shows a sense of right and wrong and a commitment to serving the greater community, not individuals. He said he errs on the side of recusal if even the slightest hint of conflicting interests arises with his decision-making as a trustee.
In any case, he said the possibility for a conflict of interest should be “put on top of the table” for people to know and not hidden. He added that in a small village where everybody gets to know almost everyone else, officials are bound to confront a potential conflict of interest somewhere along the line.
Matt also said that there should be a more “strident” effort to share the village’s policy on conflicts of interest with board and committee members and those working for Fayetteville’s departments and offices.
