Jamestown Mayor Considering Sanitation Department

Jamestown residents may soon have a new option for getting rid of household garbage.

Mayor Lyndon Baines said he’s strongly considering the idea of creating a sanitation department for the city.

“I’ve got some numbers, but with other projects going on right now, we’re trying to figure out a way to maybe push that into the budget next year or the year after,” Baines said. “We’ll have to have probably four more employees and have to buy a truck. One of the problems is that the nearest landfill is Oneida in Scott County, so we’ll have to add that into the price for fuel and man hours.”

Baines said providing trash pickup to residents would save trips to the convenience centers and help keep the city clean.

“If you have a sanitation department, you may not have as much trash on the street,” Baines said. “There’s people losing garbage on the back up their pickups going to the convenience centers. Trying to keep the city cleaner is one of the things I’m trying to do.”

A few private companies currently offer trash pickup in Jamestown, but many residents can’t afford it. Baines said most residents haul trash to convenience centers scattered throughout the county.

“Before the next election it might happen,” Baines said. “I mean, there’s other towns smaller than Jamestown that have a sanitation department. I could never understand why we didn’t have one in Jamestown. It should have been done years ago, but it never was.”