lately right now is the time to cut.

    Experience with cutting alley vegetation indicates that the offending plants are mostly bamboo and hackberry. Both are tenacious plants that can survive repeated cut backs and thrive despite heat and dry weather.

    Another serious problem is low hanging branches from trees, especially pecans, which droop into the alleys. City ordinances require property owners to maintain a 14-foot clearance over street and alley thoroughfares beneath trees located on the property or planted in the right of way. A rule of thumb is that if you can reach it standing in the bed of a pickup truck, it needs to be cut. Grassy weeds and decorative plants that intrude into the alley also need to be cut as they may conceal a hazard that

    The Neighborhood Association voted funds several meetings back to hire day workers for an alley cleanup as was done last year; however, enthusiasm for carrying out such a project seems to have flagged. Quite frankly, the volunteer turnout last time from the Square, where the problem alleys are located, was pathetic. Only two people who actually have alley garbage pickup turned up. The rest, all HPNA stalwarts, either were from the North Neighborhood or a portion of the Square without alleys. Even with hired workers, volunteers are absolutely essential to lead the teams, provide tools, and especially, trucks and trailers to remove brush from the alleys.

    Given the evident lack of interest in participation in an alley cleanup by those who would benefit from it, there is not going to be the minimum number of volunteer workers and equipment to do another. That leaves individual homeowner and property owner initiative as the only visible alternative to a likely decision by the City in the foreseeable future to discontinue alley garbage collection due to overgrown conditions.