If the mountains of old tires at EverBank Field are any indication, it appears the city’s tire and sign buy-back this weekend was a big success.According to Jeff Foster with Jacksonville’s Public Works Department, the city paid out $41,255 for more than 6,000 illegal "snipe" signs and 23,000 used tires.
Duval County residents were allowed trade in up to 10 tires at a rate of $2 per tire, or up to 40 illegal snipe signs for 50 cents per sign.
Foster said they won’t know how cost effective the effort was until they finish crunching the numbers, but based on the initial analysis, it was money well spent.
“It looks like it’s a far more cost beneficial way to do it than what we were with our dedicated illegal dumping and litter crews that we have dedicated as part of Operation Urban Blight," he said.
The goal of Operation Urban Blight is to clean up the city one zip code at a time.
The buy-back event was a collaboration between the City of Jacksonville and the City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Jacksonville’s Neighborhood Blight, chaired by Council Member E. Denise Lee.
It will be up to the City Council whether to hold more buy-backs in the future.
You can follow Cyd Hoskinson on Twitter @cydwjctnews.
