City Of Oakland Claims Headway In Battle To Thwart Illegal Dumping
OAKLAND (KPIX 5) -- Oakland is taking action to deal with all its trash.
A homeowner tells us he's fed up with seeing his neighborhood used as a dumping ground.
Angel Patino is a volunteer for Oakland community organizations. Every third Saturday of the month they head out for the day to collect trash. He's helped clean up 67,260 pounds of trash since November.
"You can smell the urine," Patino said as he gave us a tour of his neighborhood on Thursday.
He's lived in the neighborhood for 10 years and says he's never seen G Street clean.
"It's embarrassing to invite people over and to have them drive through all this," Patino said.
At the first trash talks session back in November the city made four promises: to impose stricter fines, buy new trucks for cleaning up, install cameras at hotspots, and install anti-dumping signs.
All four promises were met, but residents say it isn't making a difference.
"They haven't' done enough," Patino said.
Joe Devries, assistant to the Oakland City Administrator said, "I don't just work in the city. I live in the city. I can't stand seeing the garbage, it drives me nuts."
Devries says the city has had some success with the new cameras.
He said, "Year to date we've caught 21 illegal dumpers, collected $12,000 in fines and we've handed out a couple thousand dollars in reward money."
But he knows more needs to be done.
Devries said, "We need to move those cameras around, we need to catch more people and we need to make it more public."
There is a free pickup service in the city, but most people don't use it.
