Painesville, U.S. Army pick up litter talks

Painesville has held several inter-agency meetings across 2019 to discuss environmental issues and litter concerns that the city faces.

What began as a “Litter Brainstorming Meeting” held on March 21 with several city administration officials participating has extended to include insight gained from a visit by the U.S. Army.

City notes regarding the original March 21 meeting state that it in “an effort to reduce littering in areas where it is becoming prevalent, the City of Painesville is examining options that will educate and inform residents about the detrimental effects of littering within our community.”

Initial brainstorming was later refined, but originally involved wide-ranging topics divided between communication campaigns, city projects, cooperative projects, rewards, and penalties. These staff suggestions were then referred to City Manager Monica Irelan Dupee.

After review, Dupee refined the scope of topics brought before her. She stated in a May 1 email to a city official what “the implementation should focus on.” Among the feedback she provided was an “employee clean pride campaign” which would encourage city employees to proactively pick up litter on sight.

Litter campaign finetuning involved stencils indicating storm water drains, potential increased street sweeper schedules, and involvement with local schools for a “Keep our Community Clean” campaign.

Dupee pushed back against signage.

“This is my least favorite of the ideas,” she stated. “I am not a fan of visual noise.”

She questioned if too many signs throughout the community lead to people ignoring signs and felt that it also leads to clutter that looks unprofessional.

Their discussions were given unexpected insight from outside sources when 2006 Harvey High School graduate and member of the U.S. Army Civil Affairs Team Chaz Deering reached out to his hometown of Painesville. Deering and his team have arrived for a week of joint training running July 29 to Aug. 2.

During that time period, USACAT pairs with a local government for an annual one-week training excursion in order to train for deployment in foreign countries.

After USACAT reached out, Community Development Director Doug Lewis said that he sent them a list of items that the Litter Brainstorming Committee had been working on as well as the city manager’s comments. Throughout the week, USACAT has been meeting with various officials and people of interest to gain better insight into the topics presented to them. They will then reconvene at the end of the week with city administration to share their research.

“They will address some of the priorities and they’ll make recommendations on how we can do it,” Lewis explained. “During the week, I have them meeting with the superintendent of schools, one of the cub scout packs that said they wanted to get involved with cleaning up their community. I have them talking with the solid waste district and others.

“They’ll do some of the legwork and then have a presentation for the city at the end of the week that will go over what they learned during their research and potential recommendations.”