“I’m ready to talk trash today,” said Hannah Van Nimwegen, Manitou Springs planning director, upon taking her seat before City Council.
The literal statement during City Council’s work session on Tuesday, July 12, sparked a 90-minute discussion between Van Nimwegen and councilors.
As of July 13, businesses with overflowing trash bins and excessive waste near their area will be fined $250 daily until they meet the code.
Van Nimwegen spoke about a litter and waste control ordinance and long-term waste control. The proposal included clarifying language in city code regarding handling and disposing of waste and litter.
Van Nimwegen said that, for multiple summers, “there seems to be an increase in trash and trash-related complaints.”
“Just driving around town you can see some of these issues of overflowing trash,” Van Nimwegen said. “There are issues of illegal dumping where somebody has seen a dumpster that appears to be unmanned and dropped off a bag of trash or a couch or something along those lines.
“Our current approach is that we would give a verbal or written warning saying if we come across an overflowing trash can or a couch that’s been left on the street, we say ‘that’s against city code, next time we’re going to fine you.’ If we go back to that address, we do issue a fine.”
Mayor Pro Tem John Shada mentioned that he and council realize not all businesses are committing violations. He added that the current code isn’t harsh enough since illegal dumping continues.
“The problems we have around town, in terms of overflowing trash bins, containers that are not put away … this is in our current code (and) it doesn’t seem like we’re enforcing it,” Shada said. “I’m stunned with what’s going on in the Arcade area. It’s day after day after day that there’s trash in the creek … this is totally upside-down for me.”
Van Nimwegen said she wanted City Council’s input on issuing continuous fines for each day a business violates the trash ordinance. The hope is that would help reduce violations and encourage businesses to clean up their waste.
“If that was a practice we were going to do, which I’m willing to do … we can issue a daily fine or amend the ordinance to do a progressive fine, a steeper initial fine, whichever was more acceptable.”
Councilor Julie Wolfe suggested a $250 per day fine for violators and proceeded to go on a self-described “tirade” regarding trash violations.
“Here we are, supposedly this lovely tourist place and it stinks like hell and it looks like hell,” Wolfe said. “It’s so irritating that we pay all this money for all this city staff, and no one is doing anything about it.
“If it’s $250 a year to have a smelly, horrible business with trash sitting outside, that’s no big deal. So, if we’re able to do $250 a day, I’d like to start doing $250 per day, I’d like to do that right away.
“If you’re going to be a business, you’re responsible for your trash. If you have a lot more trash than you expected that week because it’s a holiday weekend and you didn’t plan in advance, go buy a bunch of trash cans and put your stuff in the trash cans. …If you don’t want to do that, you can pay $250 a day and we can send somebody out there.
“If you can’t figure out for your business how to solve your trash problem, you shut that business down until you figure it out.”
Council also listened to findings from a community survey. The second rendition — the inaugural survey occurred April 28, 2021 — asked residents numerous questions.
They included: the quality of life in Manitou Springs; the preferred way to receive communication from the city; and, if you could change one thing about Manitou, what would it be?
Wolfe said she’d like next year’s survey to be more personalized.
“I want to know how pleased were (people) with this particular community engagement over the Beckers Lane Bridge,” Wolfe said.
“How pleased are you with the community engagement process on the library? On Hiawatha? On the west end? … Just more specific, not necessarily inventing a whole new line of questioning, but I think the answer to those would inform us a lot more.”
Councilor Nancy Fortuin spoke about “developing and maintaining human capital.”
The idea of her presentation was “to develop a framework for discussion and inclusion in a more comprehensive and action-oriented plan in the likely event our revenue stream is negatively impacted.”
Councilors also heard about a wastewater/manhole assessment, which showed the benefits of sending specific frequencies of sound through sewer pipes to blockages.
During their “receive or act on council correspondence” session, councilors also learned a portable toilet near the Manitou Incline had been removed.
That was not authorized, and Wolfe said council may decide to close the Incline if Colorado Springs, which provides the toilets, does not act.
“If (the Incline) is shut down for a few days or their tourists are upset they can’t come to Manitou or they have to poop on our trails, I think that’ll get their attention more than how we usually do things,” Wolfe said.