As many of you know, the town has constructed a fence around the materials yard, at the 4th Avenue Shop. Some have wondered why, after all this time, would the town fence out our own citizens?
Let me be very plain. The intent was not to fence out residents or make it harder for residents to dispose of trash. But, we did have to take measures to keep certain individuals off the premises during non-working hours. We had at least four reasons for doing so.
Nightly dumpster divers would be reason number one. The mess left around the dumpsters was absolutely every night. Dragging items out of the dumpsters was not as bad as the other trash that ended up outside of the dumpsters, while the search was going on inside. The back-and-forth traffic during the night was constant, as well.
Out-of-town trash placed in town dumpsters remained a problem and a close number two. Out of town trash or household items must go to the county green-box drop-off points. Locally, that is near the stockyards off the old fairgrounds’ road. (If a resident pays a solid-waste fee and leaves trash in town dumpster, the town pays again for the same trash.) The only winner in this scenario is the landfill. Also, contractors beware. Dumpsters are for household garbage only. No building materials allowed.
Occasionally, a piece of equipment would be left outside of the building. Without exception, something would come up missing or broken. Call this reason number three for a fence.
Lastly, the old wooden fence was in pieces, unsightly to GRT traffic, and too inviting to the night-time foot traffic.
I have had complaints about why, so I hope this helps citizens of the Town to understand the purpose of the fence. Sorry, I cannot start providing keys to individual users. However, please understand residents who want to take items directly to a dumpster at the 4th avenue location can still do so.
But the gate will only be open during working hours, Monday through Friday, from 8am until 3:45pm.
Sam