Logan Mayor Holly Daines talks with KVNU For the People host Jason Williams on 5-18-2022
LOGAN — Logan mayor Holly Daines returned to KVNU’s monthly Speak to the Mayor program during For the People on Wednesday. Recently the big spring – green waste clean-up was held.
The mayor said it’s a huge investment of time and it’s amazing how big of a job it really is. So, it’s one of the things they look at from time to time as to whether it can continue as the city keeps growing.
Daines said because of that they’ve also had to re-evaluate garbage pick-up provided to the county.
“When we looked at the numbers from the last census, every community has just grown dramatically. And what used to be one truck going to a city outside of Logan, now it’s one truck for garbage, it’s one truck for maybe commercial pickups, and one truck to the farmers for pickup. Then, over the years, we’ve added the green waste and the recycling, which, again, helps keep things out of the landfill stream, it’s the right thing to do, ” she explained.
Of course, the growth means new roads too and the 100 West project continues on the city’s south side and things are moving along quickly. The mayor said it’s on track to be open by November.
“You think about the multiple years of planning that have gone into that. You start back with a concept, and then property acquisition, and finally the bidding process. But It’s going at a really good speed right now and that will have some nice benefits and some nice tie-ins to the trail system. And then they’re in planning for the pedestrian underpass that will go under Main street to connect the Gateway development with the north side of the Riverwoods complex.”
She said the underpass is scheduled to be constructed next season.
Daines said when it comes to parks, the city has always done an impeccable job with managing them. But right now there’s, of course, a labor shortage.
“We typically hire 16 full-time summer employees to help with our parks. Right now, we have like, six or seven. And we’re just not sure those will get filled at all this summer.”
Daines said where they used to clean pavilions daily they’ve had to send out notices to people who have rented them to come early, before their event, in case they need to wipe down tables.
She said park restrooms used to be cleaned daily, now they hope to clean them once a week.
The mayor said she hopes people are patient with the city this summer. She said they are actually seeking volunteers for, on the nights that residents pull out their garbage and recycling, if they would be willing to go to their neighborhood park and pick up any trash if it spilled out of the cans and pull those cans out to the street.
“Typically our employees would go around the day before garbage day and do that at every park, but we just literally don’t have the bodies to do that, so we’re hoping maybe to get some volunteer help through our neighborhood councils, or the Just serve website or summer citizens. Anyone who would like to help, we’d be thrilled.”
If you would like to help, you can reach out to the city on their website – loganutah.org