Hi there! Lakewood CO just tried to legislate control of our trash. It failed :-)

Hi guys! My name is Heather and I'm a Colorado native. Hoping to sell the house and move to Montana or Indiana, but for now I live in a city of about 155,000 called Lakewood. I'm here because I'm celebrating my right as an American citizen to pick through my neighbors' trash. Seriously, ballot question 2F just got voted down. Want to see it? You might get a kick out of it:

"Shall the City of Lakewood, Colorado, in order to increase access to recycling and composting services, reduce neighborhood trash truck traffic, and establish transparent pricing and customer service standards, be authorized to contract with one or more private waste haulers via a competitive bidding process to provide waste, recycling and seasonal yard waste composting services to all Lakewood residences of seven or fewer units and to impose fees on such residential property owners, at a base amount for waste and recycling, with optional services for additional cost, with all services not to exceed amounts and annual increases authorized by City Council, exempting all such revenues from the limits of Article X, Section 20, of the Colorado Constitution, while providing home owner associations the capability to opt out of such requirements?"

Keep in mind that our mayor and city attorney love money and shady deals more than they love Lakewood residents. Article X refers to TABOR, the taxpayer's bill of rights. Interestingly, buried in the request-for-proposal were weird stuff, like everything people put out in or near their trash is the property of the trash company, and that the city planned on buying RFID trash/recycling cans for every household and then renting them to us for a monthly fee.

I'm so happy this didn't pass! It would have made it a crime to take anything sitting out in the street by somebody's trash can, or set out for "large item pickup." This would have been bad for you guys that collect scrap metal, yes?

I collect and restore vintage lamps, and I want to learn about scrap metal. Wanna trade? You guys can have the copper or whatever I find in exchange for any old pole lamps. :-)