City Fed-Up with Utility Drop-Box Vandalism

The city of Pocatello has had enough of whoever is dropping mysterious, “unsafe” garbage in the utility drop boxes around town.

On Monday, it announced city workers will be removing the drop boxes, with the exception of the two in front of city hall and the police station, since cameras are present to keep an eye on the drop box culprit(s).

The city’s Utility Billing Director Cindy Robbins said some of that garbage is unidentifiable, for the most part. But, most recently it has resembled cat litter, in the form of wet sand, with black droppings of an unidentifiable material.

“If you’re having to say, ‘we may have to put gloves on our employees to handle the mail,’ then maybe it’s time we shouldn’t have the boxes,” Robbins said.

Despite countless efforts to put an end to this, she said this has been an ongoing problem, every month, for the past three years.

“We get a lot of trash put in there. I mean, we could have a stack of trash that we absolutely have to go through, searching for payments,” Robbins added.

She said, this usually contaminates everyone else’s payments, and when wet, makes it hard to read addresses and payment information.

Not only that, but it also exposes the city employees to whatever disgusting substance is being tossed in there, which Robbins said has to be treated as a health issue.

“It’s a sad thing for us to have to take any of these boxes out, because they’re such a convenience for people who can’t get to a mailbox or to city hall,” she empathized.

The four boxes that will be removed are located at: the intersections of Arthur Ave. and Carter St., Main St. and Lewis St., 3945 Pole Line Rd., and 2695 S. 5th Ave.

The boxes will be removed on August 10th.