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Downtown Potsdam trash issues start to improve; barrels to be emptied sooner, sidewalk-washing experiment continues

Posted 9/29/12

By CRAIG FREILICH POTSDAM – An experiment to help get downtown sidewalks picked up after busy nights is continuing, while an effort to get trash barrels emptied properly is taken care of, the mayor …

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Downtown Potsdam trash issues start to improve; barrels to be emptied sooner, sidewalk-washing experiment continues

Posted

By CRAIG FREILICH

POTSDAM – An experiment to help get downtown sidewalks picked up after busy nights is continuing, while an effort to get trash barrels emptied properly is taken care of, the mayor says.

“We asked Casella” – the waste removal company – “to improve pickup,” said Mayor Stephen Yurgartis.

“They were missing some cans, in Ives Park, sometimes cans near the Roxy Theater and on Elm Street, and I think we’ve solved that.”

Yurgartis said all the downtown cans will be emptied on Mondays instead of Tuesdays, to capture weekend trash earlier.

“And some merchants are responding,” he said, with better policing of their sidewalks.

“The merchants are enthusiastic about getting it cleaned up,” he said. “I think they’ve stepped up their effort to do their part in the overall effort.”

Yurgartis asked last month for ideas from businesses and citizens to help with a problem of trash on downtown sidewalks and overflowing trash barrels, particularly after busy weekend nights.

He said at the time that he would ask the Department of Public Works to see if pressure washing the sidewalks would help.

“We’re still experimenting with the pressure washer, to see if it can take care of things like stains and grass growing through the pavement. I think they decided that to get that set up properly they will have to get a different nozzle,” Yurgartis said.

Meanwhile the village board is considering a list of recommended larger replacements for the trash cans downtown.