OBSERVER Photo by M.J. Stafford From left to right, Dunkirk Councilwoman Natalie Luczkowiak, city Mayor Kate Wdowiasz, city Department of Public Works Director Randy Woodbury, and DPW Deputy Director Mike Przybycien sit at a Common Council DPW Committee meeting.

Dunkirk Councilwoman Natalie Luczkowiak wanted to talk about bringing back brush drop-offs during her first meeting as chair of the Common Council Department of Public Works Committee. Her fellow city officials were not enthusiastic.

Cost, logistics, lack of staffing, and abuse of the previous system were all cited as reasons the city should not resume hosting a brush pile drop site. Dunkirk shut down its previous brush drop-off program, located at DPW’s Lucas Avenue barns, last year.

Luczkowiak opened the meeting stating, “I know everyone wants to get that brush and shrubbery site at Lucas open.” However, Deputy DPW Director Mike Przybycien and Tim Gotowka, who supervises the DPW garage, said it would be expensive to reopen.

Gotowka noted the site used to be plagued by not only out-of-towners illegally dumping, but city residents abusing the system by bringing in giant trailers of brush, often from non-Dunkirk friends.

“We had one guy tear down his one-car garage and put it in the pile,” Przybycien lamented.

Luczkowiak said that the village of Fredonia dumps its brush waste in deep ravines on land it owns, but Przybycien said Dunkirk doesn’t own any land with ravines that would offer that option.

“It’s a regional problem,” stated DPW Director Randy Woodbury. “Like Tim said, if we open it up from all over, we pay for it.”

“My idea is to talk to the county,” he added. Woodbury would like a brush dump site that all of northern Chautauqua County can use.

Gotowka said fewer people are accepting brush waste, so if the city handles it, “now we have to take our time to haul it.” That’s close to a full-time job, and a tough ask in a department with 15 people, he said.

“We should talk to (Chautauqua County Executive) PJ Wendel” about the issue, Luczkowiak said. Mayor Kate Wdowiasz stated it was on her list of things to discuss with him, and she had just spoken to him the previous day.

“It’s a regional issue,” Woodbury repeated. “If we open it up, we are taken advantage of.”

“Other area legislators should step up and help in the process,” Wdowiasz declared.

She said that “it is not in our budget at all” to have an employee at the brush pile. The mayor added that she “would be very cautious with telling the public we are trying to work through this.”

“We cannot afford to have somebody to watch a brush pile,” Wdowiasz emphasized.

Woodbury opined that southern Chautauqua County has better brush pickup opportunities than the north county does. “The south is treated well. Maybe it’s not by accident because the landfill is down south (in the town of Ellery). We don’t get equal treatment, in my opinion.”

Przybycien said DPW thought it had a solution recently: Put the brush at the former city dump. However, he said Chautauqua County now owns the site, and the county won’t let brush get dumped there due to contamination fears.