A new landscape has descended on Sacramento, the city of trees, in recent weeks. Entire mountain ranges composed entirely of leaves have sprouted. Downtown and midtown are exceptions. Because of parking controls, those central city areas get loose-in-the-street leaf pickup every week.

But the city's other older neighborhoods – Land Park, Oak Park, Curtis Park, River Park, McKinley Park, east Sacramento and Del Paso Heights – don't.

Entire blocks in these neighborhoods are filled with mounds of leaves. They clog drains, block bike lanes and make it difficult or impossible to park. Residents call the garbage department regularly requesting pickups because it's the holiday season. They are having a party and there's no place for their guests to park their cars.

Steve Harriman, the director of solid waste, doesn't disagree.

"We're behind," he concedes.

Heavy winds right after Thanksgiving, producing a bigger leaf fall than normal all at once, explains part of it. But more significant, the green-waste containers that 90 percent of residents use aren't big enough to hold all the leaves that fall this time of year. The city doesn't have enough claws and loaders or crews to pick up all the leaves that fall during leaf season, particularly in older neighborhoods with big trees, he says.

A private company would have the flexibility to hire seasonal workers during leaf season and lay them off when the leaves have been cleared away.

Sacramento's contract with Local 39, the union that represents garbage workers, doesn't allow for that kind of flexibility. To keep rates low, the city has downsized its work force to levels that make sense in summer when the leaves don't fall but which are not adequate during leaf season. It tries to make up for a shortage of manpower and equipment with overtime.

It's not working, as residents of Land Park, Oak Park and other neighborhoods can attest.

The City Council has directed the city's waste manager to prepare and present a managed-competition plan for garbage service sometime next year. The plan would allow city leaders to compare a privatized garbage system against the city's current municipal system in terms of price and service. That would be a useful exercise.

One major question residents want their council members to ask: Which system, private or public, would do a better job of picking up the leaves every fall?

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