Upcoming yard-waste, chipper program canceled

Health, safety risks prompt decision to call off April 4 event

Madison Township has canceled the first scheduled session of its 2020 wood-chipping and yardwaste dropoff program to help prevent the spread of novel coronavirus.

Township trustees, during their March 24 meeting, unanimously approved a motion to call off the April 4 event, which had been slated to take place between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the community’s Service Department.

It was to be one of 13 four-hour time frames scheduled on Saturdays this year when residents of Madison Township and Village could drop off tree branches, limbs and twigs to be run through a chipper, free of charge, by Service Department employees.

Organic garden and yard waste in paper bags or containers also will be dropped off at these events.

Madison Township Administrator Tim Brown requested that the April 4 session be canceled because of health and safety risks posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. He said the event created too many possibilities of Service Department

employees coming into close contact with residents.

However, Trustee Kenneth Gauntner Jr. pointed out that Painesville Township had decided to continue its yard-waste dropoff program, and found a way to limit interaction between people making dropoffs and employees who work during the event.

“They’re just telling residents not to get out of their vehicles,” Gauntner said.

Gauntner also said it’s likely Madison area residents already would have plenty of wood and yard waste to drop off on April 4. That’s because many people have been spending more time working in their yards since Gov. Mike DeWine issued a statewide stayat-home order on March 22, he said.

Trustee Max Anderson Jr. said Service Department employees still might end up within arm’s reach of residents when they hand them a clipboard with a sign-in sheet for the program.

But Gauntner suggested some ways that a clipboard wouldn’t have to held by residents at all during the session.

“I was thinking about that, and I’m thinking, we don’t hand out the clipboard, we just have the clipboard, and maybe write down the license number of the car or something, and not have them sign in,” Gauntner said. “That, I wouldn’t want (residents) to do.”

As the discussion continued, Anderson and fellow Trustee Pete Wayman both expressed concerns that there could be a transfer of the COVID-19 virus on the surface of wood or yardwaste containers touched by both residents and Service Department workers.

Brown also reminded trustees that the governor’s stay-at-home order directed all Ohioans to engage only in essential work or activities outside of their residences.

“I don’t know if yard waste is an essential service at this point in time,” he said. “It doesn’t comply with the spirit of the order.”

Gauntner said that Brown’s point was a good one, and then made the motion to suspend the April 4 chipper and yard-waste program.

Trustees said they will make decisions on holding subsequent wood-chipping and yard-waste dropoff events based on any new and updated directives issued by DeWine to deal with COVID-19.