On the Cox Creek Path on Jan. 6. The creek bank is on the left; Talking Waters on the right behind the fence.
A trip along Albany’s creekside paths can be discouraging because of the mess that a few people leave behind. I was reminded of this on a bike ride down the Cox Creek Path on Jan. 6.
Cleanup volunteers and the city’s park maintenance crew do their best to deal with the messes on and off the paths, but the problem is too great and keeps coming back.
I don’t know exactly why the problem is so overwhelming now. Maybe it is because we have come to accept vagrancy as normal.
Maybe our society has become too lenient in the way it deals with aberrant behavior. Maybe we are all too ready, especially in Oregon, to excuse departures from what used to be accepted standards.
As I said, I have no idea if there’s a way to fix the conditions that cause some people to trash our public space.
We pay people in public life to deal with basic issues like this. People in government, that is. In Oregon, the leaders in charge of making public policy often congratulate each other for their good intentions and their goals, such as “ending homelessness” by a certain year.
The overall program might be summarized as more “outreach,” more “services,” and more help of various kinds in general. All of it would be great if it had achieved the desired result. But so far it has not. (hh)
Someone threw a picnic table into the Cox Creek gully near the Waverly Drive bridge.
Ditto for the path behind Lowes. It’s amazing how much mindless trash they haul in for whatever reason. I initially thought that was your picture because it’s so similar.
When there’s no penalty for bad behavior, it won’t stop.
Hasso. Have you not heard yet that we have a homeless population in the U.S.? Need one say more in answer to your strange inquiry that you can’t figure out why there is so much trash strewn around? Homeless people do not have homes, so they do not have trash cans. Our throwaway culture in the U.S. is also to blame. In Japan, I recently read, there are no public trash cans. People are expected to take their food wrappers, etc. home with them and dispose of them there. Also, parenting in the U.S. is to blame. It doesn’t seem that parents teach their kids not to discard things in streets and parks.
I was homeless for a few years and never left trash like this! 5 minutes to pitch tent in the afternoon and 5 minutes to break down in the morning. After that take what garbage I had to nearest garbage can. Always had a plastic bag and backpack. No excuses, these people are mental ill. If they had houses they would be hoarders. It would be cheaper to pay these people to clean up after themselves, those who are capable.
Get a clue! Ever heard of a public trash can? They do exist.
You obviously have not been on these paths. They haul in trash that makes absolutely no sense to posses and leave it there in addition to the garbage they leave that might be considered “normal”. And your excuse for the graffiti is???
Any clue who might have been responsible for stealing the shopping cart and discarding it?
Looking at your photos through the eyes of crazy Uncle Joe…
The ‘only garbage I see’ are Trump supporters.
Hey Gordon, pull your head out. This all started way before Trump! You sound like a sore loser?
Cram it, Sally.
You logged on with the name “Joe Rogan” – don’t pretend like you’re a decent person.
If you actually read what he said you’d realize your reading comprehension is at fault. Or maybe not?
If it is a small number of repeat offenders, often in the same spots, maybe it makes sense to somehow install cheap cameras? Even if these cameras are not capable of alerting to a crime in progress, perhaps they can help identify the culprit so that they can be confronted after the fact.
Last time I drove down South Pacific Blvd there was an old tire next to the sidewalk in between The Albany Police Station and a credit union. Looks awful and doesn’t speak well for Albany, the police station, or the credit union. Can’t someone who works for Albany or the credit union take that tire to Republic’s depot on “whatever street it is on”? The depot is not far from Republic Service’s office.
I’ll tell you how we deal with that. We come up with a plan it’s called adopt Park volunteers have adopted every one of our 36 Park trails in natural areas. In addition, those doctors can call for special events where we bring an extra volunteers to help with big deals. We need help. Graffiti so we created the graffiti chasers. A rapid response team that goes out and paint over graffiti as soon as it’s seen we will be doing that on the 18th at Periwinkle Park. We have other volunteer groups that go out for a couple
Every few weekends and do little things people don’t see us doing it, but they see the results. Albany has a very little graffiti as result and things are kept clean if we can learn about where there’s problems are. Sunday four of us went out for a 5 mile walk on Simpson timber brought back eight shopping carts full of trash. Took us four hours and we cleaned up the entire trail. Anybody wanna volunteer?