by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Citizen frustration caused by hundreds of millions of pounds of hurricane debris is piling up in Jacksonville, and it is starting to spill over into City Hall.
Beset by calls from constituents, City Council members are joining the chorus of complaints delivered daily to the mayor’s office through phone calls, e-mail and written letters. Some on the Council said that constituent complaints have them almost as backed up as the hundreds of City vehicles struggling to keep pace with a seemingly endless supply of dismembered tree limbs strewn all across Jacksonville by hurricanes Frances and Jeanne.
Council member Suzanne Jenkins, whose district includes downtown, reached her limit last week. Shortly after hanging up with an enraged constituent, Jenkins fired off an e-mail expressing both of their frustrations. The message was written in red, boldfaced capital letters.
“Help, I can’t take any more of this irrational (at least to me and my constituents) way we are attempting to clean up the storm,” she said.
Most frustrating was the City’s suspension of routine weekly debris pickups and its failure to keep people informed about their place in line.
“They are tired of waiting, watching others on nearby streets get service and not knowing when it will be their turn if ever. Their frustration is mounting and patience wearing thin and so is mine.”
Jenkins said the e-mails resulted from frustration on her part, and said she’s “not trying to beat anybody up.” She understands the size of the job facing City crews and a fleet of private contractors and subcontractors hired in the last three weeks.
Jenkins was heartened to find a cleanup update posted on www.coj.net. Public Works spokesperson Sherry Hall said the site would provide schedules for cleanup crews and should give citizens an idea about when they can expect to see trucks rolling down their blocks.
That will be good news to the Council members and their assistants, who have struggled to answer those questions. The City has hired about 200 private trucks to aid in the cleanup, but Council members have been unable to tell their constituents where the trucks are working.
It’s not surprising that the crews have been somewhat scarce in an 840-square-mile county, said Hall. The City usually has 34 trucks picking up debris Monday through Friday. The City currently has more than seven times that number working 12-hour shifts seven days a week.
“Obviously, in a City this size, there are going to be some people in an area where they’re not going to see trucks right away,” said Hall. Still, she said cleaning crews were working in just about every part of Duval County.
The unprecedented scale of the cleanup facing the City makes it difficult to estimate how long the job might take. “We’re not trying to estimate it, we’re just trying to pick it all up,” said Hall. But she said the City has already collected 180 million pounds of debris in the last month. Mayor John Peyton is saying that “another few million pounds” still remain.