Recycling, swimming pool pop up as issues at Jackson retreat

While most of the discussion during the Mayor's Retreat centered on well-known Jackson topics such as upgrades to police and fire departments and encouraging area retail, several smaller items gleaned from residents' input made their way onto the city's radar.

When Mayor Dwain Hahs encouraged the city staff and elected officials to voice big-picture ideas, two suggestions in particular garnered special attention: curbside recycling and forming a committee to look at options for an upgrade of the city's swimming pool.

"Door-to-door, curbside recycling is something I hear about a lot," Hahs said.

City administrator Jim Roach said while it's true people want curbside recycling, the cost-benefit ratio failed to sway residents in the past.

"Three years ago, we did an in-house ... survey and went out publicly," he said. "I think it was fairly effective, the survey basically asked, 'Do you want curbside? Yes. Are you willing to pay for it? No.' I don't remember much more than that, but that was the bottom line."

Hahs said he'd looked into what other areas are paying for recycling to get a rough estimate. In Scott City, he said, recycling is $2 to $3 per household per month. A similar model grafted onto Jackson would cost the city about $15,000 to $20,000 a month for weekly pickup, he said.

"It's just an idea, i wanted to talk about the costs," he said. "I certainly hear about it a lot."

Something else the meeting attendees said they heard a lot about was the desire for year-round swimming facilities.

"One of my big things last year was the pool," said Alderwoman Katy Liley. "There's been some groups locally who have been asking for meetings."

It's all talk at this point, and construction and maintenance costs were prohibitive for the near future, she acknowledged.

"They obviously like an indoor facility," she said. "That is frankly out of reach on many levels, but they'd still like that and I'd just like a new pool, period."

"Are we ready to put together a combination of board of staff and citizen committee ... to say will you go look at, study and figure out how Jackson should move forward for a pool?" Hahs asked.

Liley said any project would entail several million dollars at least.

Alderman Larry Cunningham said competitive swimming is getting more and more popular.

"We need to do something. We're missing some revenue there," Cunningham said.

"I think we're probably ready to do something. We've got to get some numbers and some ideas around this, and we've got people who are interested in this," Hahs said. "If we wait two years to start, it'll be two years later."

tgraef@semissourian.com

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