According to Mayor Brian Deese, Liberty is the only community that has worked with the county to get recycling percentages up for the town. He read off a letter from Chappell Hurst, the County Administrator, in which Hurst congratulated Liberty for their cooperation with the county.
“I want to personally thank you and the council, and I appreciate you standing with us,” Hurst said in the letter.
Deese said he didn’t see any fines coming their way from the county, because he felt they were doing a good job at getting their percentages up.
“We were at seven percent a couple months ago, and now we are at 14 percent. We are climbing our way up,” he said. “We are on top of our game, more so than others around us.”
Deese said he met with Hurst on Monday to discuss putting three covered recycling drop-off bins at the Public Works building. They are currently working on a grant for up to $50,000 that would allow them to include a concrete path and shelter. The grant is due in March.
“We are going the path of cooperation instead of legal action,” Councilman Rick Clark said. “We are demonstrating what we can do to fix the recycling problem.”
As far as the legal road that other municipalities are turning to, Deese said they haven’t taken that road yet, because they are choosing to take a proactive approach towards the issue.
Olin Hamlin of the Water and Sewer Department mentioned the county hasn’t taken into consideration the city recycles wood for various structures in the city. He also said the city recycles metal where the funds received from the metal are placed in a safety fund for employees.
Neither of the efforts have been included in the percentages but will be which will make the percentages go up even more, Deese said.
“I just want to let it be known that we are taking the path of cooperation, and Liberty is really doing a good job with recycling thus far,” he said.
What Liberty residents heard this ... it was the reporter, me, and my wife in attendance.
The City Of Liberty has done a very poor job getting this word out to citizens and the deadline is fast approaching.
The city should take NO CREDIT if we happen to meet the target ... they should give the credit to this website and ATLIBERTYTOSAY.COM