I had the privilege of joining about 10 great folks this morning, including residents of the Riverview neighborhood, to start cleaning a deep gully that, frankly, was a pathetic and unsightly mess after years and years of people illegally dumping tires, construction debris and other assorted junk down a hill.
The illegal dump was located near the intersection of Reynolds Avenue and North Early Street (roughly halfway between 7th and 10th Streets and just a bit north of Central Avenue).
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| Some of the tires were sitting out in the open... |
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| ...and (unfortunately) some were partially or completely buried. |
One of the neighbors who lives near this unsightly mess had emailed myself and Community Policing Officer Ryan Parker about how the water-filled tires breed thousands of mosquitos in the hot and humid summer months. She told us that the mosquitos make it difficult for any of the nearby residents to spend time outside in the summer.
Officer Parker and I had both looked at the site during the summer and, frankly, we didn't think it looked that bad. Then the leaves fell off all of the trees that shielded the bottom of the gully from the street, and our jaws dropped. There were stupid tires everywhere!!!
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| You'll have to click this thumbnail to really see it, but my red arrow is pointing to the base of a tree that has grown up *through* one of the discarded tires. These have been here a while!! |
This morning, Officer Parker organized four young men who were completing community service hours through the Metropolitan Community Service Program. They joined Officer Parker and myself along with neighbors Margaret, Bill and Callie and members of the Riverview Neighborhood group.
After three hours of the hardest work I've done so far this week (OK, this month), we had carried 202 discarded (and heavy!) tires plus a big pile of other junk up a steep hill to the street for pickup.
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| Wait a minute...this doesn't look like 202. But it is! |
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| There is a second row of tires stacked behind what you can see. |
Right before we called it a day, we stacked 60+ more tires at the bottom of the gully for removal at a later date. Want to help? It'll be fun! :-)
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| Still a lot of tires a long way down... |
Now, let's get down to the real reason I'm writing this up for the blog.
I have never been so satisfied, yet so frustrated at the same time.
I was satisfied because we made a serious dent in the complete mess down in that gully.
However, I was frustrated beyond belief that we had to spend our Saturday morning cleaning up after people who are so irresponsible as to dump their trash by the side of a city street and who drag our city down through their complete disregard for the rest of us. You can't just throw your trash wherever you darn well please.
I'm reminded of the tag line for a segment that ESPN airs before Monday Night Football..."C'Mon, Man!"
There's always a price to pay when people choose to act like pigs.
Sure, we got a bunch of volunteers to bring the tires up to the street. But someone's going to have to pay to get them hauled away.
And do you know who pays the bill almost all the time in cases like this? That's right, you and I do through the taxes that we pay to the Unified Government. Trash dumping morons force the Unified Government to use valuable (and scarce) resources to insure that our city doesn't become one giant landfill.
Besides the direct monetary cost, there's also the blight that illegal trash dumping inflicts on our neighborhoods. Current residents have to look at a mess on a daily basis, and people who might be thinking about moving in to our area get completely turned off when they see junk thrown everywhere.
If you have any ideas about how we can solve this problem, I'd love to hear them. Feel free to send an email or drop a note in my suggestion box with any comments, ideas, suggestions or solutions.
Many thanks to the people who helped with the cleanup this morning and to everyone who works hard on a daily basis to make District 2 and Kansas City, Kansas a better place to live, work and play.
Now, where's that Alleve?
~ Brian
bmckiernan@wycokck.org
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