By PATRICK COBBS
Staff Writer
germantownnewspapers.com

Leaves piled in the street like this are hazardous, according to Councilman Frank Rizzo Jr., but despite City Council’s resolution it’s unlikely that mechanized leaf collection will return at any time in the foreseeable future.

Autumn in the Northwest may be a little more work this year as a City Council resolution urging Mayor Michael Nutter to return mechanical leaf collection to the area’s tree–lined streets seems unlikely to reverse the money-saving service cut.

“We’re asking residents to work with us on this issue and take the extra step of bagging their leaves rather than raking them to the curb,” said Maura Kennedy, a spokesperson for Nutter, after the Council resolution passed 15 to 2 on November 5.

Councilman-At-Large Frank Rizzo Jr. and Eighth District Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller sponsored the resolution, which urged a return of the truck-mounted leaf vacuums. Rizzo, a resident of Chestnut Hill where mechanical leaf collection was common, thinks this year’s switch to bagged leaf collection was not well publicized by the city. The results, he said, are dangerous mounds of leaves lining the roads of the Northwest, which can be a hazard, either for fire when they are dry, or for slippage when they are wet. He even found a massive pile of leaves underneath a SEPTA R8 train trestle, where he believes dishonest landscaping contractors have been short-dumping.

“It’s just a bad situation,” Rizzo said. “And I’m hoping the administration will realize it’s either pay now or pay later.”

That situation, in large part, came from this year’s roughly $200 million city budget shortfall. By eliminating mechanical leaf collection, which only serviced ten percent of city residents, mostly in the Northwest and parts of the Northeast and West Philadelphia, the Nutter administration expects to save $400,000. The service cut was part of the city budget which underwent extensive debate prior to its unanimous approval by Council in May.

According to Kennedy, if residents bag their leaves in paper bags and set them out with trash between November 9 and December 18, recycling crews will pick them up for composting at virtually no additional cost in labor beyond the normal recycling expense.

But Rizzo’s point about notification seems valid enough in the Northwest. The evidence can be found in all the leaves lining the streets of Mt. Airy.

According to Heather Pierce, president of the Carpenter Woods Town Watch, these mounds have made it hard for walkers to complete their usual patrols. And due to a spirited local response to the service cut, Lizabeth Macoretta, the new executive director of West Mt. Airy Neighbors (WMAN), thinks she has learned more about leaf collection in her first two weeks on the job than she had ever known before.

“People are really upset,” she said. “There are some impressive piles that are starting to accumulate… People just don’t know. It was not well publicized by the city.”

Macoretta has been getting heaps of e-mails through established block groups that attest to the confusion of this year’s leaf pick-up change, she said. So WMAN made sure to announce the new pick up guidelines in its most recent newsletter.

West Mt. Airy residents have taken the project of notification into their own hands too. According to Macoretta, homemade flyers announcing the change have appeared at Weavers Way Coop and neighbors have started leaving copies at the homes of people who mistakenly raked their leaves to the side of the road.

But local solutions like these weren’t enough to keep City Council from launching into a twenty-minute debate over Rizzo and Miller’s non-binding resolution last Thursday. The measure eventually passed with only Councilman At-Large Bill Green and First District Councilman Frank DiCicco voting against it.

And while Councilman-At-Large James Kenney was one who voted in favor of the resolution, he was not happy to see it on the table.

“We have a major transit strike, we have a fiscal collapse, we’re trying to claw our way back as a city, and we’re having a debate in Council over leaf collection,” he said in an interview last week. “At some point, when resources are scarce, we have to get together and help each other on our streets.”

This was about the same way Pierce seemed to feel. To her it seemed more important that the neighborhoods find their own solutions to the problem, primarily to keep the roads and sidewalks safe, than to spend the time and energy pressuring the city to do it for them.

“They did not always do that kind of pickup,” she said. “I think we’ve gotten a little bit spoiled. You just have to bag your leaves.”

Leaf pick-up details: Use brown paper leaf bags for yard waste only. Put them out with trash and recycling through the week of December 18. Leaves left in plastic bags will be thrown in the trash trucks and not composted. Leaves left in piles on the side of the road will not be removed and the city may eventually issue tickets for this as a violation.

Paper leaf bags are available at Weaver’s Way Coop, 559 Carpenter Lane, Kilian Hardware, 8450 Germantown Avenue, and the ACME Market at 7010 Germantown Avenue.