Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man... Leaves

I mowed the street in front of my house this past Sunday. I also mowed it last weekend.

I don't normally mow my street since it is concrete, but the accumulating leaves lying in drifts by the curb demanded attention. Something had to be done. Ignoring them would result in heavy, compressed and hard to cleanup layers from the comings and goings of traffic. Since the city public works department won't be on my block for another two weeks doing their annual leaf cleanup, mowing seemed to make the most sense.

For the past 15 years, I've always raked my leaves to the curb around the end of October. The city workers would then collect them using a gigantic vacuum that shredded the remains of summer and deposited them into dump trucks to be hauled away.

Our part of town was always the first area to be leaf vacuumed every year. The schedule has never varied until this fall. We're now the third of four zones to be picked up starting nearly a month later on November 29.

Some years I cussed the City when we had an Indian summer and the leaves didn't fall promptly. Why did we always have to be first? I would rake what I had to the curb to be collected, while twice as many leaves still dangled from the trees, hanging on until after the city was finished picking up our zone. Then I had to hope the city might come back to vacuum up my fresh piles or I had to dispose of the leaves myself.

Other years I was thankful we were first on the list, when November rains soaked the leaf piles and the public works department had equipment failures delaying the pickups for much of the city.

I don't know how the city came up with this schedule where our part of town was always first. I've long thought it was ironic that in this instance the poor side of town got preferential treatment.

I like to say my wife and I live on the "poor side of town," although my wife hates it when I do that. However, if you look at the property tax assessments for the older parts of Cape Girardeau -- like where we live versus the newer parts of town such as the subdivisions surrounding Lexington Avenue -- the difference is obvious.

For instance, I live on South Louisiana and the average property tax assessment for the 40 homes along that street is under $700. In comparison, Kenneth Drive located just north of Lexington has 45 homes and their average property taxes are almost $1900.

By looking at those averages, one could deduce that since the folks who live in the northern part of the city pay significantly more property taxes -- in this comparison, about 270% more -- that they deserve the best service from the city.

Which includes getting their leaves picked up first. I guess that's only fair. Their higher residential property taxes pay for a considerably larger portion of city services and the public school system than those homeowners -- such as myself -- who live in the older parts of town, the "poor side of town." I practically feel like a freeloader.

Having piles of decaying leaves linger for weeks out by the curb in these neighborhoods on the north side of town is potentially detrimental to the city's overall tax base. Even one unkempt house can result in lower property values for an entire neighborhood.

The same thing goes for homeless shelters. One just opened about 5 blocks away from my house on William. Homeless shelters have no business being located on the north side of town. If someone opened one of them up there, it could negatively impact the home prices in that immediate area resulting in the loss of property taxes which could then mean the city might have to layoff a worker who did important things like vacuum up leaves from the curb.

So if we're going to have homeless shelters they need to stay in the parts of town that generate a lot less tax revenue.

It just makes sense like mowing the leaves in the street.