Editorial: Clean-up time
The city's clean-up policy is extremely lax, which sends the message that littering is not a big deal for students.
By Ian Stanford
Friday, April 18th, 2008
Ever wonder why some students leave their parents’ tidy nest, move to Lawrence and then trash their lawns with empty beer cases, Solo cups and cigarette butts? The answer might have more to do with Lawrence’s city code than the absence of finger-wagging mothers.
That’s because the city’s environmental code allows first-time offenders a full month to clean the mess. After disgruntled neighbors or a wandering city official reports the problem, a courtesy letter is mailed asking the residents to take care of the situation. If nothing has been done in 15 days, another notice is sent telling residents that they will be fined if the problem is not dealt with in another 15 days.
Candice Davis of the Oread Neighborhood Association explained that the city’s current policy is “totally inadequate” because by the time 30 days is up, wind has usually blown trash out of the offender’s yard. She said she no longer bothered reporting problems because of this.
The city’s clean-up policy is extremely lax, which sends the message that littering is not a big deal for students who already have no incentives to clean up their rented property. Students are busy, but no one needs 30 days to pick up the cups from Tuesday night’s quadruple kegger.
A walkthrough of the Oread Neighborhood (the student ghetto) revealed that the majority of renters keep their yards relatively clean, but the few who don’t have so much trash strewn about that you’d almost think they dumped it intentionally to make a post-modern artistic statement.
Landlords need to check on their properties more often to ensure that their tenants are keeping things tidy. Greg Perry, author of “Managing Rental Properties for Maximum Profit,” said that in addition to personally checking on their properties, landlords should have neighboring homeowners contact them if they see any problems because individual landlords can deal with the trash more quickly than the city can.
But because renters make up about 85 percent of the student ghetto, the city needs to fill that watchdog function. Lawrence also should follow the Oread Neighborhood Association’s suggestion to amend the environmental code by eliminating the initial courtesy letter sent to first-time offenders. That way the first letter will alert offenders that if the problem is not fixed in 15 days, they will be hit with a hefty fine. Both Overland Park and Topeka have a similar policy.
Lawrence officials will discuss a possible change to the environmental code during the city commission meeting, which takes place at 6:35 p.m. on April 29 in City Hall. Students and homeowners alike —especially those living in the Oread Neighborhood — should be there to voice support for a cleaner city.
—Ian Stanford for the editorial board
Discussion
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Students need to be educated about keeping our neighborhoods clean! this is a step in the right direction, but we need some sort of campaign so that students feel like they could really help out. Perhaps people could volunteer to pick up trash in the Oread Neighborhood every weekend? How about some flyers telling students to pick up after themselves? Student Senate, SLAB Directors, CAD, and CCO I'm looking at you...you can make this happen!
As far as the other side of this, this could be an impetus for Neighbor Dave to further his tyrannical reign over upper louisiana street. That man needs to be stopped.
Community cleanups are a good idea, but a cleaner neighborhood doesn't require organization, as many of these problems are on private, not public, property.
I believe that no matter how much of an emphasis (or money) is put on eco-friendly practices, there will still be some who aren't going to change their ways unless coerced by a landlord or the city. Right now, there is barely any pressure from either party.
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