Shopping carts and trash are on the table for the city commission in Pittsburg with the hopes of keeping the city clean and cutting the costs residents and businesses are currently taking on. “It’s more that when we don’t have these ordinances and this activity is allowed to happen, you end up with the town just looking trashy,” said Roger Lomshek, Pittsburg resident. Roger Lomshek is just one of the residents and business owners who’ve brought the issue of digging through trash and abandoned shopping carts to the city of Pittsburg. Issues he’s seen frequently. “We have people pushing shopping carts full of junk all over that. They’re just leaving wherever they feel like it. When they’re digging through a dumpster, they’re leaving. It laid out,” said Lomshek. He’s concerned it’s costing local businesses more out of their pockets and costing consumers more money too. “They’re running 250 to $450 per cart, which means they’re losing tens of thousands of dollars a year in these missing carts,” said Lomshek. “That’s a pretty big loss when they’re walking off their lots every day. So we’re really trying to help support our businesses and reduce that,” said Kim Froman, City of Pittsburg Dir. of Community Development and Housing. Kim Froman is the director of community development and housing for the city of Pittsburg. After hearing concerns and seeing it herself – the city brought two ordinances to Tuesday’s city commission meeting. A new ordinance aims to prohibit individuals from being able to take shopping carts off private properties. “Whether they were from the housed or unhoused. We don’t always know. But either way, it’s an expense to the retailer and then the city is having to clean that up. And typically those shopping carts are removed,” said Froman. It can also make it that if anyone takes a shopping cart off retail property– the person would then be cited with theft, a class C misdemeanor. The second ordinance’s goal is to make sure people can’t go and dig through other people’s trash enclosures. Unless they have written permission.
Source: KSNF/KODE