By Tia Lyons
Staff Writer
With its quarterly community cleanups on hiatus until the fall, Keep El Dorado Beautiful is exploring multiple ways to help educate residents on how to beautify the city and keep it litter-free.
The group covered several topics during a recent monthly meeting, agreeing that new ideas are needed to ratchet up its mission of raising awareness about recycling and beautification, litter and engaging residents in ongoing efforts to improve the appearance of El Dorado.
KEB, with assistance from Clean Harbors, is encouraging each of the city’s four wards to organize a community cleanup during each quarter of the year.
So far this year, cleanups have been held in wards 3 and 4, and KEB members agreed to hold off on wards 1 and 2 until temperatures cool down in the fall.
Clean Harbors — whose general manager, Dan Roblee, serves on KEB — is offering cash incentives of $300 each to volunteer teams that participate in the cleanups.
Teams must be made up of at least 10 members and they must complete the work on the scheduled day of the cleanup.
The ward 3 and 4 cleanups were coordinated by their respective El Dorado City Council representatives.
KEB members said they plan to speak with the aldermen of wards 1 and 2 — Ward 1 council members Mike Rice and Billy Blann and Ward 2 council members Vance Williamson and Judy Ward — to see if they plan to participate in the fall cleanups.
KEB members have stressed they are not a cleanup crew for the city but a resource to assist citizens who want to organize and maintain community cleanup efforts.
“I feel like these council members need to be responsible for their ward and oversee these cleanups like (Council Member) Mary McAdams and I did in Ward 4,” said Dianne Hammond, a member of the city council and KEB.
Hammond and McAdams, with help from KEB, provided volunteers with a map of streets that make up Ward 4 and assigned areas for teams to clean.
Mayor Frank Hash advised the group to speak privately with Ward 1 and 2 aldermen about the matter, rather than introducing the topic at city council meeting.
“Some don’t think they’re responsible for cleaning up their ward, that it’s their responsibility to represent their wards on political matters. You might stand a better chance of winning their hearts with a private conversation,” Hash said.
“We feel like we shouldn’t step over the city council. We should at least ask them first,” said Janis Van Hook, president of KEB. “If they reject it personally, then there’s still the opportunity to ask the people who live in those wards if they want to participate.”
KEB member Valarie Smith clarified that the group is not asking the council members to pick up litter themselves.
“We just want you to organize it and head it up with the help of Clean Harbors and KEB,” Smith said.
Tony Henry — Ward 3, Position 2 alderman and KEB member — made similar statements, saying, “If they don’t want to participate personally, we can ask if they know someone in their ward who does, so we’ll know who we can go to.”
Henry pointed out that the majority of KEB membership is made up of residents from wards 3 and 4, noting that one, Roblee, lives in Ward 2.
Van Hook said she will speak with Williamson and Ward. Henry said he would reach out to Rice and Blann.
Other ideas
• KEB member Janelle Williams noted that hundreds of people are expected to visit El Dorado over the next several months for events such as MusicFest in October and the 42nd annual Arkansas Governor’s Conference on Tourism next March.
She said the city should get ready for the influx by cleaning up, starting with its gateways.
Williams, who recently helped form the Union County Tourism Coalition — in part, to prepare for the governor’s conference — urged KEB to initiate more special projects that are focused on litter and beautification, saying that she recently heard public feedback.
“I was at a funeral, and I was approached by a man who said, ‘I appreciate what you’re doing with the tourism coalition, but we’ve got to clean up this nasty town,’” Williams said.
She homed in on the Hillsboro/Junction City Road gateway, saying there are several areas are overgrown with weeds and filled with litter.
“You can’t event walk on the sidewalks,” McAdams said of the area near the train trestle, just west of Marrable Hill.
“There are planters and bike trails over there that the city spent thousands of dollars to build and all that’s in there is weeds,” added Williams.
Williams suggested that KEB partner with businesses in the area, possibly in the form of a contest, to launch a “clean the curb project.”
“We could give out awards for first, second and third place. It would be like the (community) cleanups, but it would be a specific location,” she explained.
Hash said he liked the idea and encouraged KEB members to reach out to the applicable business and property owners.
“If you contact them with a letter, I would not be surprised if they complied. A lot of folks don’t think about these things. They’re business-minded. Their focus is on their business and they don’t think about beautification,” the mayor said.
Smith said she previously spoke with several property owners along Hillsboro, and she and Williams cited the need to get more people involved in such cleanup projects.
Van Hook noted the city also has a side-arm mower that is supposed to maintain roadside vegetation.
Noting the well-landscaped frontage of Arby’s, Hash encouraged KEB to speak with the restaurant for some pointers.
He also said the city would print signs designating “the Mayor’s Yard of the Month” for local residents. Hash said four signs would be printed for each ward, and KEB would announce the winners each month.
“We have some people who are doing great things with their yards,” Hash said.
KEB member Pat Smith said the Union County Master Gardeners have taken on a similar project, explaining that signs are moved to a different location approximately every six weeks.
• The group also discussed hosting assemblies in local elementary schools this fall and putting together swag bags containing trinkets and materials that will appeal to children and educate them about KEB’s mission.
“This is the route to education. You teach the little people about these things, and they’ll teach them on up the line,” Hash said. “You just can’t go out and pick up after people. You’ve got to get them to not do it in the first place — change the mindset.”
• KEB discussed learning more about the newly formed Property Development Committee.
Headed up by Council Member Willie McGhee, the committee is looking at ways to address vacant, unsightly properties by developing plans for dilapidated houses and commercial buildings and for maintaining lots once a structure has been condemned and razed.
Something the committee has been discussing is selling the lots, seeing if there are interested buyers who would like to rehabilitate the structures, or adopting them for community gardens.
“It may be beneficial for us to interact with that committee on some of these things,” Van Hook said.
Tia Lyons may be contacted at 870-862-6611 or by email at tlyons@ eldoradonews.com.