Council seeks input on leaf burning

Vandalia’s aldermen are split on the issue of burning leaves, and they want to know where local residents stand before they consider making any changes to the city’s burning ordinance.
The city council’s streets committee agreed to discuss the current ordinance after a letter from a resident, Kenny Lewey, asked the city to consider banning leaf burning.
The chairman of that committee, Alderman B. John Clark, said at the start of Monday’s meeting that the city’s public works director, Marlin Filer, would like to have such a meeting so he could provide input on the issue.
During that meeting, two alderman spoke in favor of banning leaf burning and two said they wanted to continue allowing it.
“Personally, I’d like to see leaf burning banned,” Clark said to start off the meeting. “But I’m just one of eight.”
Alderman Andy Lester said, “Ditto that.” But Lester said that he would like to see the city be allowed to continue burning, given the fact that it collects leaves and other debris.
Aldermen Ken Hubler and Mike Hobler are on the other side of the fence.
Hubler said that there is “a lot of expense and time bagging these leaves up. I can’t shell out $150 (a year) for these bags.”
Hobler said, “Personally, I’d hate to see it (banned).”
While the city currently vacuums and picks up bags of leaves for residents, Hobler said, “We can only store so many” before coming up with a way to dispose of them.
If leaf burning is banned, the city will be incurring more expense in disposing of leaves, Hobler said.
Alderman Russ Stunkel said he believes that leaf burning in the city “is not as bad as it used to be,” with one reason being that the Vandalia Park District having the city pick up leaves it has raked from city parks.
Filer said that the public works department “gets our regular customers before the parks.
“We typically don’t burn a lot of our leaves, maybe 10 percent,” Filer said. “We usually find somebody out in the county who will take our leaves.”
Filer told aldermen with public works directors in Salem and Greenville to find out how those communities deal with leaf disposal.
He said that Salem has banned leaf burning and now either vacuums or picks up bags of leaves.
Once it made that decision, Filer said, Salem had to purchase a second vacuum truck to handle the load of leaves from residents. Those trucks, he said, typically cost more than $100,000.
To offset its additional costs, Filer said, Salem added a monthly surcharge of $2 to residents’ water bills.
“But he said that it doesn’t come close to offsetting (their) costs,” Filer said.
Greenville, he said, currently uses two vacuum trucks, but also allows residents to burn leaves. But, he said, residents have to get a permit in order to burn.
Alderman Steve Barker said, “The ordinance itself has got a lot of teeth to cover what needs to be covered.”
After considerable discussion, Clark said, “I think what basically we need to do is enforce the ordinance.
“Everybody’s got a different situation, and there’s no cure-all solution,” he said.
Clark and Hobler said that they have not received any complaints about leaf burning this year, and Code Enforcement Officer Zac Kopp said he has received just one call, about a fire burning later in the evening.
In addition to smoke from leaf burning, aldermen talked about smoke coming from fire pits and wood-burning units, meaning that banning leaf burning would not eliminate all smoke issues in the city.
At the close of the meeting, Lester said, “My opinion is, I’d like to let this sit for a while. I think we need to get more input.
“I’d like to see it done away with personally,” he said, adding, “but we’ve all got an opinion.
“Somebody’s going to be inconvenienced” regardless of what is done, Lester said.
He asked whether there is “anything we can do to tweak it?”
City Administrator LaTisha Paslay said, “We just tweaked it in May.”
Lester said. “That doesn’t mean it’s untweakable.”
Filer agreed to check with more area communities to see how they handle the disposal of leaves.
The city’s current burn ordinance follows:
SECTION I: That Section 9.12.060 Bonfires be and the same is amended by deletion of the
existing title and paragraphs A and B and substitution of the following:
9.12.060 BURNING WITHIN THE CITY LIMITS
A. No person shall, within the City Limits, bum any material in open air or inside
a stove or other enclosed apparatus kept outside a building and designed to
contain burning material.
I. Exceptions include:
a. Leaves, Tree Trimmings, Branches, Stumps, and Brush.
b. Apparatuses designed to bum wood, com or pellets to heat a
home.
c. Open fire pits measuring no more than four (4) feet wide from
any angle and burning only wood.
B. Burning shall not be done:
I. On streets, alleys or public right·of-ways
2. When weather conditions, such as wind, may cause burning embers to be
carried off the premises.
3. When smoke generated by the fire creates a visibility hazard on a street or
alley.
C. Any fire permitted by this ordinance, other than burning done in an apparatus
designed to heat a home shall be attended at all times when burning or
smoldering by a person 18 years of age or older.
D. fires permitted by this ordinance will be allowed daily from 8:00am – 5:00pm.
At 5:00pm all fires must be extinguished and are not allowed to
smolder/smoke. Exceptions to the time limit include apparatuses used to heat a
home and open fire pits.