BCR's Daily Fishwrap Report for July 14, 2009

Big fishwrap raspberries today to the Herald-Sun, for running the City's Monday press release on recycling changes verbatim and without any new reporting under that new fave byline of the N&O and H-S alike, "From Staff Reports."

The City's press release did a good job of trying to reiterate many of the points made in Friday's press release about recycling and solid waste changes. While BCR's supported these changes as a nice improvement of service, there's no question that changing one solid waste pickup day, moving citizens to a biweekly schedule on recycling, swapping out recycling bins and switching bulky yard waste pickup -- all at once -- is a massive undertaking to communicate, probably (with the drought) one of the toughest municipal communications challenges in recent memory.

That said, and somewhat understandably, it certainly hasn't been flawless, as evidenced by some of the comments on Saturday's story here and by the traffic on local listservs late last week (including reports of long waits to reach Durham One Call late last week, which was reportedly jammed with questions about the change.) None of which have really drawn much attention from the Herald-Sun; Monica Chen's article on Saturday didn't cover any of these parts of the story.

Wait, the Herald-Sun did change one thing about the press release they ran: a new headline, "Curbside recycling kicks off; problems few." (The City's title: "Durham's New Curbside Recycling Program Launches Today," was itself appropriately neutral.)

If you're not going to do original reporting on the matter and you run a City press release instead, how can you editorialize on the headline?

The rest of today's news is below the jump.

• The H-S has more on former BOCC commissioner Lewis Cheek's joining law firm K&L Gates, whose land use practice is involved in many Durham projects, including the controversial 751 assemblage zoning and watershed boundary matter. K&L Gates' Bill Brian tells the H-S' Ray Gronberg that the firm did not recruit Cheek (who'll serve in a half-time capacity) until after the commissioner stepped down from his post, and that he "didn't recall and couldn't comment" on whether any conversations on a possible job happened anytime before the July 1 merger of Kennedy Covington into the new firm (during a time when Cheek had stated he was seeking a new job as an attorney.) Gronberg notes that State Bar rules should prevent Cheek from taking on clients on matters where Cheek had been involved as a commissioner, and that he would have to be screened out of participating in other matters where he had substantial personal involvement in office. (H-S)
• A committee that's evaluating candidates for a new principal at Hillside High held a public meeting last night to get public input on the search. A number of speakers (which included Lavonia Allison) criticized the fact that interviews of principal candidates wouldn't be open to the public -- a tough thing to accomplish, perhaps, given personnel laws. Other criticisms included notably what one parent called the re-segregation of poor, largely minority students at Hillside and Southern versus wealthier students at Jordan and Riverside. (H-S)
• Durham is one of four NC cities, and one of 93 nationwide, honored by national nonprofit KaBOOM! as being a "Play City USA" for bringing playgrounds and parks within walking distance of kids. (N&O)
• Still more cash for the Triangle Expressway: US DOT announced $386 million as a Federal loan to the project connecting the Durham Freeway to Apex as a toll road, an effort that looks likely to get under construction this year. (N&O)

Comments

[Sherry]

I am puzzled that there is not a stronger objection to the concept that bulky items and yard waste will sit at the curb for two days (take it out the same day as your normal pickup and they will come back the next day to collect). Durham certainly will no longer have curb appeal. Unbelievable.

[lucky]

That wasn't the only verbatim press release in the H-S these days. Kind of surprising, no?

[Moe Rivera]

The idea that we have to have bulky items/yard waste out on the curb an extra day is to save on fuel costs. the process is being streamlined, no more riding around "hunting" for things.

[SteveG]

I'm also concerned about cans being out at the curb for two days instead of just one, but who am I kidding? Most of the rentals and apartments in my neighborhood leave the cans out every day, week after week, month after month. I hope that they increase their enforcement of pulling cans back from the curb after collection. It will only become worse, by a factor of 2, with the new recycling cans.

I expect that there is going to be some room for improvement with the yard waste and bulky item pickup. According to Donald Long's presentation last night at PAC2, the garbage trucks have a handheld computer in the cab that they use to record the locations of Yard Waste cans and bulky items that they come across on their route. This information is beamed back to Solid Waste HQ, who then print this info out for use the next day for collection.

I would imagine that this could all be streamlined to effectively create a "dispatch" type of system. Instead of being printed out, the info would be transmitted to a handheld computer in the cabs of the Yard Waste and Bulky Item trucks. They would then go out, leaving maybe an hour after the garbage trucks leave, and follow in their footsteps collecting the items that were marked for pickup earlier in the day.

[Scandi]

I just wish they weren't bright blue. So much for the streetscape--huge cartoony blueberry blobs all up and down my block. Couldn't it have been a neutral color instead? *sigh*

[jacob]

Actually, I think having bulky items sitting out for an extra day is a fantastic idea. Not only does it (for reasons explained by Moe Rivera) make things more efficient, but it allows for neighbors and others to see items that others are throwing out and rescue them.

One person's trash is another person's treasure. When I used to live in Boston, discarded televisions would appear on the sidewalks, waiting for the monthly(?) pickup. My roommate and I went through the neighborhood, gathered up the best looking ones, and brought them back to our building, where we dangled out an extension cord from our window to test them out. I'll never know why the one we chose was being thrown away, but I was glad it wasn't picked up immediately.

[Tar Heelz]

Gosh, it sure would have been nice today if I could have (i) been able to get in and out of my driveway; and (ii) been able to receive mail delivery.

The new system is garbage.

[Phil]

"Reduce. Reuse. Recycle."

Looks like the H-S now does all three. Greenest business in Durham.

[Todd P]

Parks within walking distance in Durham? The closest park to my neighborhood is more than 2 miles away. But I guess if you have good shoes and enough time, ANYWHERE is within walking distance.

[Erik Landfried]

@Todd - I think all awards or recognitions Durham gets in the future should be based on a single person's experiences.