The City of Niles DPW/Street Department’s brush chipping program has ended for the season and will resume next March. The DPW/Street Department is now gearing up to start the annual leaf collection program, scheduled to begin on Monday, October 25th in the Fourth Ward. Leaves are collected one ward at a time, rotating the program to begin in a different ward each year.

Please assist the DPW/Street Department crews by following these few basic rules:

• Rake leaves to the back of the curb and not onto the pavement. Leaves raked into the street can cause flooding problems, create a safety hazard, and hampers snow removal operations;
• Leaves mixed with brush, limbs, trash, ashes, lumber or other debris will not be picked up;
• Leaves must be raked out in advance of the leaf vacuums. Leaves raked out afterwards will not be picked up;
• Please move your vehicles to off-street locations when the crews are in your neighborhood, both for your benefit and your neighbor’s. Cars parked in the street slow the collection process down significantly and force the crews to leave piles of leaves behind that can not be reached with the equipment;
• Please do not cover the water meter castings in the boulevard area. This prevents meter readers from taking actual readings and can result in your water consumption being estimated.

Crews will go around the City at least three complete times, weather permitting. Don’t take any chances, rake out as many leaves as possible in advance of the first pick up, since the second and third times around may be halted or delayed by bad weather. Normally the crews work ten hours per day, Monday thru Saturday. The goal is to complete the entire program prior to Dec. 15.

If early winter weather were to completely shut down the collection program and we are unable to resume it once the weather improves, we may schedule a spring leaf collection program. If that were to be the case, an announcement in the Niles Daily Star and the South Bend Tribune would be released.

Assume that there will be NO spring program unless there is an official announcement released by the Department of Public Works. Should residents not be able to rake leaves out in time to be picked up by the City, take leaves to the Southeast Berrien County Landfill, 1540 Mayflower Rd. Buchanan, and disposed of in a convenient, easily accessible location.