Recycling numbers down; aim higher

No news is good news. I have been wracking my brain trying to come up with some news and information to impart and it is difficult because, gosh darn, we are one of the safest and best run cities in California! But here we go anyway.

Recycling. It does baffle me that in 2015 we as a country, state and city do not recycle as well as we should. Does anyone really not think about the enormous impact we are having on natural resources with our voracious consumption of goods and services?  Shouldn’t we all be doing everything we can to recycle so that our children and their children still have natural resources left long after we are gone? Oh, those were rhetorical questions with the answers of “no” and “yes” respectively. For those that failed this test, shame on you, and for those that passed, bravo.

Being government, we get lots of statistics and for November 2014 they showed residential curbside recycling continued its march above 50 percent, arriving at 52.82 percent. Commercial recycling plummeted to 11.48 percent, which drove the overall recycling mark for November to be 48.14 percent. For calendar year 2014, we are now at 48.95 percent. As a community we can and must do better. We should be at 70 percent, not pushing 50 percent. Remember, your brown can should be bigger than your blue can. We can do this!

Fire Front. After much angst and effort Clayton Fire Station No. 11 is set to re-open this month with full staffing.

The district will be graduating its new fire class on Jan. 15 and will begin re-staffing our station beginning Jan. 16. We will then be having a Grand Re-Opening from 11a.m. to 2 p.m. on Jan. 31. See story in this issue for details.

Planning Commission Opening. There is a Planning Commission opening now that former commissioner Keith Haydon has ascended to a Clayton City Council seat. If you are interested in doing some community service and helping keep Clayton great, applications are being accepted so go to the city website and put in your application. The city council will then interview all candidates and make an appointment at our first meeting in February. Also, remember that we also are always looking for volunteers for our Trails and Landscaping Committee, applications which can also be found on the City website: www.ci.clayton.ca.us.

Happy New Year! In honor of our New Year’s resolutions, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could put ourselves in the dryer for ten minutes; come out wrinkle-free and three sizes smaller?”  On the other hand, “Chocolate comes from cocoa, which is a tree …that makes it a plant which means … chocolate is salad!”

Email me at dshuey@ci.clayton.ca.us.