Down In The Dumps

On a Monday walk from Chez Boulevardier to downtown, Your Boulevardier encountered an illegal dumpsite on Norbridge Avenue, just west of Nunes Avenue. Returning to the scene yesterday, the detritus was still there. (Not that it would get up and remove itself.) Your Boulevardier apologizes for the poor quality of the photo.



Your Boulevardier and Mon Petit Chou, who was making a rare-but-welcome weekday visit, discussed the circumstances that could lead to a person dumping two couches, a bed, a pallet, and other miscellaneous refuse on a public street. Certainly, a trip to the dump can be costly, but the Castro Valley Sanitary District offers a free bulky pickup once a year. Perhaps timing and finances were the issue: the dumper had been evicted from his home and had nowhere to take the stuff, and no money to deal with the problem. Chances are the truth will never be known, in this particular case.

Regardless of the circumstances, dumping on a public street is a selfish, wasteful, uncivilized way to deal with refuse. Clearly the perpetrator knew this, because he dumped his junk in a dark, untrafficked stretch of road with no residences on either side.

Timing is Everything

Your Boulevardier notes with dismay that once again a large, windy, wet storm is arriving on trash day in his neighborhood in Castro Valley. Prepare for garbage cans (sorry, carts) to be blown over -- or for trash, especially papers, to be blown from trucks -- and for wet, sticky garbage to clog our streets and gutters. Sigh.

Cloudy Creek

Your Boulevardier was walking on Grove Way earlier today and noticed that Castro Valley Creek was very cloudy, as if someone had perhaps dumped paint into it. He tried to find the right agency to call to report this (assuming that somebody wanted to know) and found it difficult. There is a Clean Water Program, but it does not list a phone number.

After being bounced from one phone to another (all of whom answered "Public Works") a person took down the information, but did not share any information about what might happen next, or offer to follow up, or even say thank you.

Do readers have any idea who should be called next time?

Uncanny

Can-pickers regularly work the trash receptacles on the Boulevard, retrieving recyclables. Which makes this scene, captured by Your Boulevardier this morning, very confusing.



Note that this is one of the receptacles with the recycling pyramid on top. Yet all of the cans and bottles are piled at its base. The only explanation Your Boulevard can come up with: when crews emptied the trash, they deposited the recyclables at the base of the receptacle so the pickers could more easily find them.

Any other theories?

On Four-Day Workweeks

On this first day of a four-day workweek, it seems an appropriate time to call attention to a small typewritten sign spotted recently by Your Boulevardier on the door of Merle Norman Cosmetics on Castro Valley Boulevard. It reads:

ATTENTION .... PLEASE !!!!!

WE TRY TO CONSERVE ENERGY BY:
(1) KEEPING THE LIGHTS TURNED DOWN
(2) BEING CLOSED ONE EXTRA DAY

IF EVERYONE THAT COULD WORK A FOUR DAY WEEK
WOULD SAVE MILLIONS $$$$$$$

ONE LESS CAR ON THE ROAD JUST ONE DAY A WEEK
AGAIN MILLIONS $$$$$ WOULD BE SAVED ....
LESS FOSSIL FUEL BEING BURNED ... MUCH BETTER
FOR OUR ENVIRONMENT ......

ALL WE ASK IS THAT YOU THINK ABOUT YOUR CHOICES
TO MAKE THIS A BETTER WORLD-------INSTEAD OF
COMPLAINING THAT IT'S NOT CONVENIENT!

SEE YOU ON WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY OR SATURDAY

To which Your Boulevardier can only respond: "Amen."

More Trash Talk

On his evening constitutional Your Boulevardier noticed this overflowing refuse receptacle by the bus stop next to Safeway on Castro Valley Boulevard.

The Castro Valley Sanitary District will be contacted to inform them of the problem. None of the other trashcans on the Boulevard were similarly stuffed; one does not know if this one gets extra use, or if it was passed over in the last round (or two or seven) of collections.

And speaking of trash receptacles, the earlier post entitled "Yes We Can" about Castro Valley's new residential trashcans has attracted a better-than average number of comments. (Not that one would ever deign to call the esteemed and loyal Wudas "average.") Your Boulevardier is, of course, not an official of the Sanitary District so he cannot answer any of the fine questions posed by readers; however, some of them are addressed here.

And he will describe his own experience with the new cans (which, by the way, the District calls "carts," but Your Boulevardier does not).

The crew came through the Baywood District this last Tuesday delivering the new cans, and the delivery proved to be a strangely hypnotic operation. A flatbed trailer loaded with nested new cans was pulled along slowly by a truck. One worker stood on the moving trailer, putting wheels on each can and dropping it onto the street; another worker rolled one to each home. Another truck came through and collected the older garbage and recycling cans.

For reasons inexplicable, the pick-up vehicle left behind the old-style green-waste cans, even though the new ones for the same purpose had been delivered. As of today, three days later, the green can at Chez Boulevardier has still not been taken away, and Your Boulevardier is close to considering it a gift from the district for use around the yard. One can always use another sturdy trashcan with wheels.

Also of note: a surprising number of homes in the neighborhood have not yet rolled their new cans from the street and back to their yards. Perhaps they do not recognize them as theirs. Or perhaps the new cans are just too new and clean to put trash in. (Your Boulevardier admits that he can relate to this feeling.) Or maybe it's like a baby animal that has been touched by human hands: its mother rejects it because it does not smell right.

Strobridge Interchange Questions

The new interchange from Eastbound I-580 to Strobridge Avenue appears to be nearing completion. Most barricades have been removed, and crews appear to be in cleanup mode. Still, four questions remain in Your Boulevardier's mind about the project. They are, in no particular order:

How will the odd patch of earth between the freeway and the onramp be maintained? One finds it hard to believe that a crew will get way up there regularly with a lawnmower to tend the narrow strip. Your Boulevardier is no fan of pavement, but it would make sense in this case to not make the area a haven for unwanted vegation.

Will CalTrans remove the fences that run along both sides of Strobridge Avenue under the freeway? It can't be argued that the fence on the west side keeps anyone out, since it stops abruptly on the south side of the underpass with no gate or structure to close the end. For now, all the fence does is collect trash, and it's very rarely cleaned out.

What will happen to the CalTrans corporation yard on the north side of the underpass? Like the aforementioned fence, the yard is an unmaintained haven for trash. Illegal dumping occurs regularly, and many piles of construction materials and debris remain there as well.

What is the purpose of the metal box at the top of the onramp? Will it be relocated, and if so will the temporary barricades and sand barrels around it be removed?

Maintenance of this offramp has long been neglected by CalTrans. Indeed, one of Your Boulevardier's neighbors left the Baywood District because (among other things) he felt the area gave a slumlike first impression, what with the litter and ill-kept homes along Strobridge Avenue. (And, perhaps ironically, this person drove a garbage truck.)

Wudas Is Right

There are fewer things online that are more pathetic than an abandoned blog. One of those things is a blog with a long hiatus followed by a post reading "Sorry it's been so long since there has been a post."

The Castro Valley Boulevardier falls into the second category.

The usual excuse applies: real life has been busy. Several things have been noted by Your Boulevardier, but he has not taken time to post on them. For example:

• A couple of weekends ago, several of the concrete trash bins on Castro Valley Boulevard were knocked over. They were righted within a day or so.
• Other vandalism seemed to spike as summer drew to a close. The pedestrian overcrossing over Highway 580, frequented by Your Boulevardier, was tagged again, and promptly cleaned up again. Your Boulevardier is pleased that the appropriate authorities are staying vigilant to it.
• Restaurants have come and restaurants have gone. The Indian restaurant in the Village, the Vietnamese place across from Pete's Hardware, and the "Theme Unknown" place by Kragen Auto Parts are among the openings. (Your Boulevardier has not tried any of them.) Closed are Fongs, Peking Village, and Pancho's. Meanwhile, Bangkok 580 fell victim to a takeover robbery.
• The cloudy creek question (the post on which prompted Wudas to remind Your Boulevardier to update the blog) was resolved, and it appears the problem was simply construction erosion upstream. If Your Boulevardier appeared alarmist, he apologizes.
• Your Boulevardier participated in Barefoot Boot Camp at Castro Valley Yoga in the third week of August. The upper body is still complaining, though proud to have made it. It's amazing and heartening to think that a dozen people would be up and exercising at 6:00 a.m. for six consecutive days!
  
• School has opened, and it is pleasing to Your Boulevardier to see children walking to their classes. Still, school zones continue to be dangerous places for pedestrians, what with distracted parents driving their offspring while engaging in telephone conversations, eating breakfast, or attending to their grooming.
  
• For Sale signs, and vacant properties, seem to be appearing more frequently around town, at least in Your Boulevardier's home district of Baywood.
• Your Boulevardier saw a poster for a Green training class co-sponsored by the Castro Valley Sanitary District and the Castro Valley Adult School, upcoming on September 27. More information can be found at the Adult School website (appropriately enough, on Mr. Green's welcome page.)
• A production of Carousel is coming to the Center For The Arts later in September. One can't go wrong with Rogers and Hammerstein.
• Castro Valley product Rachel Maddow is getting a regular MSNBC show. Your Boulevardier does not partake of intense political coverage from any portion of the spectrum, so he has not seen the show; but he knows friends of Maddow's parents, and hears that they are rightfully proud of their daughter.
  

For now, this list of tidbits will have to suffice. Again, Your Boulevardier apologizes for the long drought of new material.

Chabot Creek Contamination?

Castro Valley residents who live along Chabot Creek in the Baywood District noticed today that the creek is cloudy. Your Boulevardier can confirm this at the spot where the creek emerges on the south side of Highway 580 near the Strobridge Avenue pedestrian overpass. (On the north side of the freeway the creek is in a concrete ditch and water clarity is more difficult to discern.)

Authorities fromthe East Bay Municipal Utility District and the Alameda County Public Works Agency have been contacted. When or if a source or cause is determined, Your Boulevardier will report it here.