New ‘Keep It Clean COS’ litter & weed control team in full swing one year later

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - It was last August that former mayor John Suthers called for the creation of a new crew of public works employees to do additional removal of litter and mowing of weeds.

"The efforts that we're already doing in the city just aren't enough to keep up," Suthers said at the time. "We need to do more. We want a city that matches the beauty of its natural scenery."

That new team, called Keep It Clean COS, was funded with $2.7 million in city funding and was created by Travis Easton, the city's public works director.

KRDO caught up with the team Thursday as it worked along Voyager Parkway, for an update on its efforts; the team started working in January.

The team has 11 full-time and part-time employees who use a variety of machinery to gather trash and litter, and well as cut down high grasses and weeds, on medians and along streets and roads which receive the most public complaints.

"They've cleared enough trash to fill almost 4,500 half-cubic-yard trash bags; the big black trash bags," said Corey Farkas, the city's operations and maintenance manager for public works. "They've removed over 415 dead animals out of the right-of-way."

The city has already purchased four vacuum trucks that eventually will be part of the team.

Farkas said that he and other supervisors are evaluating the team's performance in its first year, to determine whether changes are needed.

"We're getting more calls for service than ever before," Farkas said. "We're also trying to get people to do a better job of securing their trash on windy days so that it doesn't become litter somewhere else."