Norman Recycles 7 Million Pounds In First Year Of Program

It's been a year since the city of Norman implemented curbside recycling, and according to a report issued on Wednesday, half of us are participating.

The average household participation rate over a 12-month period from March 2008 to 2009 was 47 percent. June was the top month with 51 percent, and January had the lowest participation. Makes sense: January is cold, and people hate cold.

OK, I hate cold.

Waste Management/Recycle America (WMRA) collected 7 million pounds from Normanites in one year. That's 3,500 tons or about 300 tons per month. Not only is that 7 million pounds from which new goods can be made, but recycling also reduced the amount of waste disposed at the Norman landfill by more than 1,000 tons.

As for what WMRA is collecting, city officials said two-thirds of it is paper and the other third is comprised of containers made of plastic, aluminum, tin and glass.

Newspaper by itself comprised more than half of Norman's recyclables by weight. That's a lot of Transcripts, OU Dailys and Oklahomans.

Curbside items are collected weekly by WMRA and include newspapers, magazines, advertising inserts, junk mail, phone books, aluminum cans, clear-brown-green glass, milk jugs, beverage containers, detergent containers (stamped #1 & #2 on the bottom), clean food cans and lids.

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OU Tight End Jermaine Gresham Arrested On Seat Belt Warrant

Not every arrest is, well, an "arrest."

Take OU tight end Jermaine Gresham who was taken into custody on Monday because of a warrant for failure to pay a Feb. 2 seat belt ticket. Two weeks and a day later, Norman police arrest him because he neither paid the citation nor did he set a court appearance.

Bad Jermaine.

I could be totally off my rocker, but I seem to recall having much longer to pay a ticket, upwards of a month before the warrants came out. It's been a long time since I've gotten a ticket, so I could be wrong.

However, in the scheme of athlete-police encounters, this is about as innocent as it gets.

Read more on NewsOK.com.

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As part of a continuous effort to revise what we're doing here on The Norman Files, we're going to start offering links each day to Norman-related stories, videos, sites, etc. Think of us as a blog and an aggregator.

So, some posts will be "just" posts and then one post per day will be the catch-all, with the big story of the day in Norman supplemented by links. I've seen other sites do this, and they're often the sites I come back to most often. Plus, this accounts for the fact that time is limited.

Besides, I do so much surfing each day, I highly doubt you'll find another site with a better variety of Norman-related links.

Links for April 15, 2009:

Corner Store on Porter robbed

Video report on robbery

Guestroom Records celebrates 'Record Store Day'

No. 9 Sooners Beat TCU (baseball)

Men's Gymnastics Seeks 9th Nat'l Title

Norman Regional Hospital among best employers

Recap of Norman council meeting

Child abuse prevention meeting

Soonerguys at Red-White Game

Nice Red-White recap from Palestra

Profile of talented local musician Dorian Small

and last but not least ...

French dude comments on Saturday night thunderstorm in Norman

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How Are Recessions Like Tornadoes...?

They both seem to find ways to avoid Norman.

Slate.com has great interactive map looking at when job losses happened in each county in the U.S.

You can't search for Cleveland, but if you put your mouse on just the right blue dot, you find that we gained 2,756 jobs from February 2008 to February 2009. And 3,100 from January 2008 to January 2009.

I'm sure individuals have had very bad things happen because of the recession, and things could get worse at any time. But it looks like if you want a place to ride out tough times, Norman's a pretty good home base.

(Anybody got guesses on who is hiring all those extra people? It can't all be Embassy Suites!)

*Yes, I'm aware of the tremendous jinx potential of this post.

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Tea Party Held On OU Campus

Oklahoma blogger Jason Fritts documented quite nicely the tea party at OU on Monday. For those of you who don't know what these 'tea parties' are all about: They are gatherings of taxpayers and voters who believe the federal government is overstepping its bounds relative to spending and power.

The concept is rooted in revolutionary history, of course, but ignited by Rick Santelli's cable television rant of a few weeks ago.

Jason writes that there were about 100 to 150 people in attendance, and he lamented that there weren't more folks in attendance given the population near campus.

To read his complete report on the event (with tons of photos), visit http://iam.jasonfritts.com/.

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Norman 'Tea Party' Set For Wednesday, 5 P.M. At Train Depot

You've probably heard about such-and-such 'tea parties' on talk radio and wondered, "What in the world?" Well, these are basically grass-roots movements state to state, city to city to protest governmental overspending and bailouts.

There's a big one set for Oklahoma City on April 15 (tax day), but did you Normanites know there is one scheduled for Norman? It's at 5 p.m. at the historic Santa Fe Train Depot, and the group's e-mail address is normanteaparty@yahoo.com.

To learn more about these tea parties and what they stand for, visit okcteaparty.webs.com.

And if you happen to go, please snap a shot or two or take a video and e-mail me at thenormanfiles@gmail.com so I can post to the site.

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Executive VP For Harpo Offers Advice To OU Students

Nice piece on the OU Daily's Web site on Monday regarding a Friday talk from Erik Logan, an executive VP for Oprah Winfrey's Harpo, Inc.

He talked to journalism students about what it takes to be successful.

Two of his secrets are not really secrets in the professional world, yet they are undisputable truths: First, one has to find something one loves. Second, one must work his butt off.

Believe it or not, the first of these two things is often difficult for people. I know plenty of people who have no idea what they want to do, and they're like 40. On the other hand, I know some people who would rather eat mud than work a 12-hour day.

Anyway, this guy was spot on and, frankly, a good read/watch for anybody wanting a professional vitamin.

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Norman City Council: Ward 1, 2 Meeting Set For April 20

City councilmembers for Norman's first and second wards are hosting a meeting at council chambers (201 W. Gray Street) next Monday at 6 p.m.

If you're not familiar with your wards here in Norman, here's a map. Ward 2 essentially encompasses southwest Norman around Lindsey Street and Ward 1 is southeast around Lindsey.

Your Ward 1 councilman is Bob Thompson, who owns the wonderful Midway Grocery & Deli on W. Eufaula Street. Your Ward 2 councilman is the newly elected Tom Kovach (took office in July 2008), and he's a customer service manager for an optics company.

On a side note, I worked with Tom 20 years ago at Homeland here in Norman, when I was in college. I knew at that time this guy was meant to lead people, to be in government in some capacity.

Among the topics of discussion will be:

• Norman Regional Hospital


• Neighborhood Watch Program and CAFEE


• Development of Voluntary Neighborhood Associations


• Stormwater Master Plan


• Ethics Police for Boards, Commissions

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Part Of Acres Street Closed Next Couple Of Weeks

A Norman street will be closed for a couple of weeks for sewer repairs, city officials said.

Acres Street is closed from Pickard Avenue to Berry Road for at least two weeks, weather permitting.

Drivers can use either Dakota or Hughbert streets as alternate routes.

Signs were to be placed by Action Safety Supply Company to assist drivers.

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Odds On Vista Restaurant Reopening Don't Appear To Be Good

Owners of the Financial Building in downtown Norman say they just about have some basic bracing up. In a Sunday story in the Norman Transcript, a construction project foreman said that the building strengthens for each floor that gets braced, meaning the overall structure can withstand higher gusts.

However, the owner of the space formerly occupied by the Vista Restaurant didn't sound terribly optimistic that the bar and grill would reopen. About 30 jobs were lost.

Take a tour of the inside, courtesy of the Transcript:

Financial Center close to stable
Uploaded by normantranscript

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How To Know If There Is A Burn Ban In Cleveland County

Because of the nature of my day job, which is also in news, there will be times that I have to step back from my hyperlocal blog efforts to take care of my primary duties. Last week, that meant wildfire coverage.

Thankfully, Norman wasn't affected.

The latest information I have is that the wildfires that destroyed dozens of homes in Midwest City and Choctaw were intentionally set. Furthermore, I have heard some unreleased and therefore unconfirmed details that would indicate that it was malicious arson.

However, it could have just as easily been started by a cigarette butt or a homeowner burning trash. The former should never, ever happen because cigarette butts should never for any reason ever be thrown from a car.

However, a lot of homeowners in the country are going to burn their trash. Normanites are going to grill or use the chiminea, too. So, we have to be aware of when a burn ban is in effect.

Thankfully, the Oklahoma Forestry Service has a site with color-coded maps showing which counties are under a burn ban and which aren't. You can visit it here.

And according to the map, Cleveland County is in the clear. For now.

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