Fremont cuts down stops for garbage pickup
By Laura Collins
Published in News on January 21, 2010 1:46 PM
Starting Feb. 1, some residents in the town of Fremont will be required to place their trash cans on the opposite side of the street for pick-up.
As a way to save time and money, the Board of Aldermen voted Wednesday night to amend the garbage pickup routes so the truck only has to go down most streets once.
"The truck can only pick up garbage cans on the right side of the truck. This will dramatically decrease the time it takes to pick up garbage. This will decrease employee time and fuel costs and, in the end, help us to keep the costs of operating the town as low as possible," Town Administrator Kerry McDuffie said.
The following streets, or part of streets, will have no change: Aycock Street, Ballance Road, Bentwood Mobile Home Park, Bryant Street 100 Block, Edmundson Spring Road, Friendship Drive, Goldsboro Street, Harrell Street, Hillandale Drive, Highway 117, Highway 222 East (East Main Street), Highway 222 West (West Carolina Street), Johnson Street, Lee Street, West Main Street, Memorial Church Road, Milford Lane, Mill Street, New Daniel Church Road, Newsome Street, North Alley (behind post office), Pippin Street (Davis Mill Rd), South Alley (town hall & BB&T), Sycamore Street, Thomas Jones Street, Ward Street, Washington Street (100 block) and Wooten Street.
The following streets, or part of streets, will have their trash cans picked up on the side of the road that has odd number houses or house numbers ending in 1,3,5,7 or 9: Barnes Street, Branch Street, Bryant Street (200 block), Carolina Street (East), Charles Drive, Cross Street, Dickerson Street, Dock Street, Green Street, Jenkins Street, Martin Street, Peacock Street, Pine Street (South), Vance Street, Washington Street (200 block) and Wayne Street.
The following streets, or part of streets, will have their trash cans picked up on the side of the road that has even number houses or house numbers ending in 2,4,6,8 or 0: Black Street, 800 block of Chestnut, Hooks Drive, Main Street Mobile Home Park (to Main Street), North Street, Pender Street, Pine Street (North), South Alley (to Gravel Rd) and South Street.
Also at the meeting, the board approved selling the police department's K-9, Jessy. K-9 officer Lawrence Phifer recently resigned, so the department is looking to sell the dog and her equipment including her cage, doghouse, dog carrier, cage for the K-9 police car, a bite sleeve and shock collar.
"It's nice to have a K-9 officer here in town," McDuffie said. "But he's not always the one on duty, and there's so much training involved, this will actually allow us more manpower on the street."
Police Chief R.K. Rawlings said he hopes to hire another full-time officer in the next couple of weeks. Currently the town has three full-time officers and six part-time officers.
Rawlings said he's confident the department's crack- down on drugs in the area won't take a hit from no longer having a K-9.
"It was good when we had it, and I support K-9 programs 100 percent, but it's not going to affect our operation. The (Wayne County) Sheriff's Department has always been right there when we've needed a K-9," he said. "A town this small, I think the K-9 actually hurt our personnel as far as manpower was concerned. He had to train with the K-9 24 hours each month. That's time he could have been on the street."
The town purchased the dog for about $8,000, 80 percent of which was drug money that had been seized. The town expects to sell the dog and the equipment for less since the $8,000 also included initial training fees.
Also at the meeting, the board approved a name change for the town's fire department. It is now the Fremont Fire and Rescue Department. Since the department also does extrication, McDuffie said the name change was necessary.
"If someone gets into a wreck and needs to be cut out, we don't want to wait for the extrication equipment to come from farther away," McDuffie said. "When someone's in a serious accident like that, being able to get them out may be the difference between life and death."