Page 8 - Reedley Exponent 9-6-18 E-edition

Jon Earnest / The Exponent
On Aug. 31, Reedley Police Chief Joe Garza, second from right, told two homeless people that they weren’t allowed to camp out on public and private land located near the Kings River. Garza is flanked by officers Eric Freedenburg, center, and Jennifer Villanueva (behind Garza) and Community Service Officer Victor Perez, right.
RECYCLING Continued from page A1
Robertson said that about 55 percent of Reed- ley’s residential recyclables are being taken to the land- fill. He said the city wants to contradict the conventional idea of disposing of recycla- bles. Residents will receive in their next utility bill a breakdown on what should or should not beer recycled.
“We feel our public is very educated and smart,” Robertson said. “That is go- ing to reduce our residual percentage we hope, thus equate to lower cost for the city. We feel it’s worth the extra effort to try to re-edu- cate our public to try to get these costs down.”
Art Pena, owner of Pe- na’s Disposal, told the coun- cil that China has driven the
WORKSHOP Continued from page A1
purchased. On the fire side, a state-of-the-art lad- der truck and full-time bat- talion chief have bulked up the volunteer force.
Zieba also had members of the Measure G oversight committee stand and be recognized. Robert Takacs, chairman for the committee, came forward and addressed the council.
“ It’s an honor to be asked to continue to lead this committee,” he said. “And it’s been an honor to lead our committee in ques- tioning our fire chief and our
market price for recyclables for the last 25 years.
“Not only California, but most of the world sends most of their recyclables to China,” he said. “We’ve invested millions of dollars in infrastructure, machin- ery. We do a lot of our labor by hand. That’s enabled our company to actually keep the material pretty clean. We’ve been able to meet some of the strict regulations that China has presented.”
Robertson said the city did look into other options, but Pena’s remains the clos- est processor to the city and the two have had a good long- term working relationship.
“They’ve been a great partner,” Robertson said. He added that the short contrac- tual term allows for the city to evaluate changing market conditions.
police chief. I don’t believe there’s been a single meet- ing we’ve had that we’ve not had a budget question, or a question concerning issues that we haven’t tried to get addressed.”
Takacs said he’s quite vo- cal when it comes to problem with the council, but praised their vision and the work of city staff.
“I think this is something that does need to continue, without question,” he said. “And I would be most willing to spend time with anyone that’s questioning a half-cent tax override.
“It’s just been a blessing for the city of Reedley.”
CLEANUP Continued from page A1
rights, evidenced in an inci- dent a few years back when the city of Fresno lost a law- suit for disposing of homeless residents’ items when taking down an encampment.
“It may be trash to us, but to someone else it may be property,” he said. “We have to collect and separate this. It’s considered found property, and we have to hold it for a mini- mum of 30 days. That gives the owners every chance to come collect their items.”
Environmental restric- tions prevent police and vol- unteers from touching foli- age and growth of trees at the river as they remove trash.
“We have to go around it, we can’t pull it out,” Garza said. “We can’t take things apart just because of the fact it is protected.
Homeless moved to the area near the river in recent months from a location in an abandoned orchard east of Buttonwillow Avenue. The orchard was removed for an eventual development of homes. and most of the 15 to 20 homeless set up an encamp- ment west of the subdivision.
Since then, police have removed a majority of the homeless — mostly men be- tween the ages of 19 and 50. Since it is public property, the people can’t be prohibited from being in the area but they are specifically barred from camping out.
Garza said signs were put up notifying homeless of the impending cleanup process. These signs since have been replaced by signs saying that the homeless have 30 days to collect their possessions that were taken from the area. It’s all part of a consistent emphasis by the city to keep homeless people from staying in the area.
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Photos by Jon Earnest / The Exponent
ABOVE: Nicole Zieba, city manager, picked up a shoe during a cleanup near the Kings River on Aug. 31. BELOW: Signs notified the public that it is illegal to camp on public or private property in the city.
Reedley Downtown Association & Adventist Health Present
Reedley Reedley Downntotwownn Assoocciaitaiotnion
The Reedley Exponent A8 Thursday, September 6, 2018
Jon Earnest / The Exponent
Art Pena, owner of Pena’s Disposal Service, addresses the Reedley City Council at the Aug. 28 meeting. Behind Pena is Russ Robert- son, public works director for Reedley.
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