Much of Old Town's sewer and water repairs are complete. Many of the streets are Cosmo-complexion smooth, and now the focus turns tot he final polish before Fantasy Fest attracts big crowds. A new street cleaning strategy is going into trial testing just about the time three new pieces of expensive equipment are scheduled to arrive.
"The old street sweepers are over ten years old with lots of miles and wear `n tear on them," said Richard Knowles, Key West Director of General Services. "We hung on to them well past their life span."
Knowles says the city just spent $220,000 with Tenent Company to replace the two street sweepers that worked sometimes; sometimes they didn't. An additional piece of equipment which is akin to a golf cart, was also purchased to clean finer matter that the big sweepers can't pick up. All are scheduled to arrive by the third week in October.
"That's when our new alternate side parking strategy is going to be tested," said Knowles. "On varying days, there will be no parking on the left side of a street, then the next time we clean that particular street, there will be no parking on the right side so we can do a more effective job of cleaning."
Knowles says that an expansion of services is planned, although no increase in employees will occur: "The same two people will do the job more effectively. Since I took over the superintendent job, we've expanded the street cleaning program, which used to only include the main thoroughfares."
Under the new program, main thoroughfares like Duval Street, Front, Truman and Caroline will be cleaned daily, and both Old Town and New Town streets will be cleaned twice a month.
"The new equipment will be in use seven-days-a-week," said Knowles. "It lasts from five to six years, which averages the cost out to be aobut $20,000 a year for the equipment."
That's too much, says a local entrepreneur. "I have three contracts with shopping centers here, and my sweeper costs $35,000," said John Staren, a 15-year veteran of Chicago city street cleaning before he moved to Key West. "I can clean the streets for less."
But Knowles says there has been no expanded costs for the city's street cleaning, just an upgrade in the services and the type of machines being used: "These are altogether different from the `Pelicans' we were using. They're more truck-like and instead of holding three yards of debris like the old ones, they hold five yards of debris," he said.