We who stumble over the Gulf of America vs. the Gulf of Mexico, can now add a Great Lake to the learning curve. Little did MAGA know that in addition to being a great diplomat, their president is also an expert on geography and naval ship design. He and his appointed medical consultants have even apparently figured a way to remove the spine from every elected Republican, but leave them standing and talking.
The Allentown Park Department, which now specializes in tree planting and endless events at Cedar Beach, wants park users to carry out what they bring in. To encourage the new program they have removed most of the trash cans, and only empty the remaining ones once a month.
As some of you may know, I have produced a small paperback on Allentown titled Allentown Chronicles, available at Amazon Bookstore. If you're new to town and want the history going back to William Allen, this is not the book for you. It is a collection of 36 posts from this blog, selected memories of an Allentown baby boomer.
photo taken Thursday August 27, 2026 at Allentown Department of Parks
I don’t understand how one administration can have so many misguided policies and stupid mistakes.
ReplyDeleteTrash collection and removal is a BASIC function of municipal government. Not only is uncollected trash a quality of life issue (it looks bad), but it’s fundamentally a health issue.
Uncollected waste spreads disease, attracts rodents, and gets into our water supply. Instead of collecting less, the city should be looking at ways to collect and remove more.
Books have been written about how Disney addressed the litter problem in their parks. It added more trash receptacles and had it down to a science (I think it was to have a trash can every 15-20 feet or something like that).
Obviously, an amusement park is different from a municipal park, but the solution is the same - more receptacles lead to cleaner parks.
That this administration can’t handle something so obvious with a little common sense should be alarming to all residents. If they can’t handle the basics, they certainly aren’t capable of dealing with anything more complex.
anon@9:06: The park system infrastructure is a series of bad decisions based on wokeness. The crime is that Allentown had a nationally known system, going literally to poison hemlock seed.
ReplyDeleteA drive downtown would instruct anybody to add more trash cans in the parks, not remove them.
Mike, just back from France, the beaches and public areas there are trash carry out only. This arrangement requires trust that the public will comply, and in the area we vacation they do. I'm sure there are areas in France where trust is not certain and measures would be taken to insure the public is best served by providing readily available, traditional trash disposal containers. Those in charge here locally are clearly misjudging the situation.
DeleteIronic (NOT) that we are charged more and more for trash pickup, yet they take less and less. It is no wonder why people just dump things like electronics since the city makes it quite a chore to get rid of such. Let's not forget the excessive charge to pickup any appliance with freon... another contrived non issue courtesy of the chemical companies expiring patents... follow the money, ALWAYS!!!
ReplyDeleteRather than dwell on the negative, let’s think of solutions. More police patrolling , even though it’s not a glamorous assignment. More education, clearly edited signage that spells out the rules and helps change behaviors. Citations for abusers, pure and simple, action has consequences. No more dumping trash, no more swimming in the creek, no more inflatable toys in the water and no more fishing without a license. More trash containers, at least until the public understands the “pack out” policy. More pick up, at least during the good weather season.
ReplyDeleteWhile we’re on the subject, the cans shown in your photo are a waste of taxpayer money.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the openings are too small to easily throw away larger amounts of trash, but more importantly nobody wants to touch spring-loaded portion that covers the opening.
Why? They are filthy, and who since Covid really wants to get other peoples germs on their hands, especially during a picnic when there aren’t adequate places to wash your hands afterwards?
Again, this is simple common sense, something sorely missing in the Tuerk administration.
In addition, those cans probably cost in the thousands as compared to the more economical 55-gallon drums that used to be used. They are the city-level equivalent of the $300 hammer.
Bottom Line: Our parks are filthy, and taxpayers are being fleeced for trash cans that don’t do the job. A cynic might wonder whether the vendor is making any campaign contributions.
anon@3:04: Those containers are much worse than you know. They sit on top of eight foot pits, and the custom bags take a small truck mounted crane to remove them. There are containers by the pavilions, and one very small one by the last pond near Ott Street. Every weekend that small container overflows, and the parking lot by the park office is littered with trash. Current park policy is disconnected from current park reality.
ReplyDeleteFunny how nobody, including newly found Republican critics, never complained about all the things Obama and Biden did to change names. Think about ships, military forts and installations, legal vs illegal 'migrants', and even what a biological man is really called.
ReplyDeleteWhat would specifically those names be?
DeleteI offer this: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-lake-america-and-60-years-of-u-s-renamings/
ReplyDeleteLVCI@5:07: I had declined to print comment @ 12:30 because I'm tired of Trump back blaming Obama & Biden for things. Furthermore, so are the voters.
ReplyDeleteanon@12:16: I'm not a Republican critic, rather a Trump critic and his sycophants, which unfortunately, does implicate many Republicans. I suspect they will amend their ways Nov. 4th.