Streetsweepers

There's a lot less streetsweeping in C'dale as part of the overall budget tightening process. I happened to see a couple of them around town last week, which moved me to enquire about the reasons for the cutback in street cleaning.

Carbondale streetsweepers used to make daily runs throughout the community 6 days a week, 52 weeks a years, more or less. Now, we're down to twice a year, in the fall, to get leaves off the street and clean them up before winter and then once in May, to clean up the town before graduation.

The reason for the reduction: a savings of $200,000 per year for the city. The two full time employees each earned about $50,000 and it cost another $100,000 or so for the sweepers themselves. Now, the city pulls employees from other jobs for the twice a year cleaning and the sweepers stay idle the rest of the time, unless someone calls the city about a area that really needs sweeping, such as a street section littered with broken glass.