The residents of Watonga are being handed a chance to show they want change. The question is whether they are willing to get off the couch and take that chance.
Cleanup day couldn’t get much easier. Take your large items – but not appliances with freon, or paint, or nuclear waste – and place it next to your poly cart on your regular trash day the week of April 13-17. You can also put branches and yard waste out, provided it bundled in 4-foot lengths.
Then, on Saturday, April 18, volunteers and city workers will tackle some alleys to clear the branches, couches and just plain garbage that has accumulated there.
This is where it gets sticky. Without a doubt, some numbskulls will decide that since the crap in the alley got picked up, the city is miraculously going to start picking up there again, and will haul more branches, couches and the like out to the alley.
There is an idea kicking around that anyone found replenishing the garbage in the allies will be subject to a ticket and $500 fine. That should be sufficient to quash the alley pickup rumor.
So, pay attention. If your alley gets cleaned, thank your lucky stars and be thankful. If not, hope you get on the list for next time. Meanwhile, don’t make the problem worse.
Cleanup has been a hard row to hoe without a place to haul large items. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. As soon as the construction is completed at the wastewater treatment plant – scheduled for June- and as soon as some money can be allocated to run a convenience center – that should be part of the budget process completed in June – the problem will be solved.
What won’t be solved is residents who simply will not take care of their own trash.
I understand there are people here who cannot lug a couch outside and load it onto a trailer. There are work arounds for that. Ask for help. Call the city, the churches, the schools, the tribe. Post on social media. And there are people who can’t afford to pay for help. Ask anyway. Help is out there if you put a little effort into finding it.
The biggest problem, in my view, is that people have gotten complacent and decided that nothing is going to change, or that change is too hard. True, it won’t change on its own. We must make it happen. We have to say we have had it with lots full of dead cars and refrigerators, trashed boats and buildings that fell in.
We must give the office of code enforcement real teeth, enact serious fines and begin condemning derelict buildings and lots with burned out hulks. That will entail demolition and cleanup, and that will cost a pretty penny.
We aren’t there yet. But on the day when a homebuilder can come into town, find multiple infill lots on which to build or place modular homes, and is willing to pay for those lots, then we are getting somewhere.
Until then, do your part. Put your large items out on cleanup day. Don’t drag your crap – including branches – to the alley. Take a little initiative and have some self-respect. That’s how we start getting the town looking like good place to live.