Webinar questions & answers

Here's the link for the working archive for the Mobile Webinar. Log in and click on "Play Archived Webcast."


As for my specific questions, I asked three questions throughout the course of the Webinar:

"Are there any green initiatives coming up for Mobile in the near future? If so, what are they?"

"What specific improvements are being made in our recycling programs?"

"How will natural resources be preserved under the new 10-year plan? Will this include historic parks and other natural landscapes?"


That last question refers to the plan included on the link.

For the green initiatives question, Mayor Jones responded: "We have an Urban Forestry Department that basically works with various [projects]: planting trees, we do a lot of work in terms of green areas in the city -- especially those that belong to the city -- and it's something we take very dearly here in Mobile -- how we handle green areas and how we maintain green areas -- and that's one of the reasons we take on the initiatives (building parks on vacant properties that the city owns in various locations). We have ones starting here in the near future, and we have some others we have targeted."

Another person emailed with a similar question to my recycling one, so here is their question and Mayor Jones' response:

"Is there a city-wide, or better yet a county-wide way to easily recycle our garbage? What is going on in Mobile to make it a greener city?"

Mayor Jones responded: "There are some recycling programs ongoing in Mobile, and there have been many other programs ongoing. Some of the vendors who do recycle have stopped doing that now because the goods that they recycle -- they benefit from it -- well, the cost outweighs the benefit from it, and we have seen some of that in the past. But there are still some recycling programs in certain areas where those programs have worked."

Also, another person asked a similar question: "Other cities provide many recycling centers at fire stations and public schools. We have a need for more recycling centers. Why can't Keep Mobile Beautiful and other places be used for recycling more?"

Mayor Jones responded: "Keep Mobile Beautiful has been looking for another recycling location for the western sector of the city, and continues to look at that, and that is something that we want to do. We agree that we do need another site, and that is something that we have targeted to do in the future."

Mayor Jones responded to my question about natural resources being preserved in the 10-year plan: "We have a lot of different prohibitions on what we can and cannot do. A lot of that is based on local ordinances, state law, so -- I don't think you'll see the plan in any way destroying any natural resources."

He responded to my specific question about recycling right after: "We would have to get Mr. Haskins to answer that directly. We'll get his e-mail to him."

And that concludes the Webinar questions & answers.

However successful, there were some problems I experienced with my word getting out there. For example, since we were dealing with a high volume of emails and questions needing to be answered, Mayor Jones' answers had to be as candid as possible and with as little information in order to further expedite the situation. I understand this. However, this does not mean the work is done.

The questions about Keep Mobile Beautiful and the recycling programs were very important, appropriate topics for the city, and entailed very important, detailed responses.

Thus, I'll come back in a few days after having spoken to some of these groups directly on specific improvements.