By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
Following an online survey from the City of Great Bend asking citizens to prioritize “quality of life” projects, the number one vote getter was a city-wide cleanup.
A 13-member committee, charged with determining how to use the new .15% sales tax collections for quality of life projects, has discussed ways of executing a cleanup.
Great Bend City Administrator Kendal Francis has
talked with City of Ellinwood officials on how their city handles a city-wide
cleanup. To have multiple dumpsters for citizens to drop waste at for 10 days,
Ellinwood paid $4,700.
"Ellinwood told me they were required to have separate dumpsters for mattresses, metals, tires, etc.," said Francis. "Some of the tires had rims on them, so they had to pay to have the rims taken off."
With the size of Great Bend being larger than Ellinwood, Francis estimated it would
cost Great Bend $30,000 to do a similar city-wide cleanup with 6-10 dumpsters for
10 days.
Although the quality of life sales tax committee has been in favor of
the idea, there were Great Bend City Council members that questioned if a cleanup
qualifies as a “quality of life” project and if money could be found elsewhere for the project.
"When Great Bend used to do it, the city went around to pick items up," said Francis. "People might expect that service. I did think there might be an opportunity to partner with volunteers to help the elderly pick up and deliver it."
Sunflower Diversified Services has offered to allow the city to make use of
their west 10th Street property to put the dumpsters if the plan is
carried out. The suggested timeframe for the cleanup would be in October.
The sales tax committee plans to present a project recommendation to the Great Bend City Council Aug. 15 for approval.