Kirkland spent $730,000 to pick up trash in parks

The City of Kirkland spent $730,000 to clean up trash in parks in 2016. Now the city is asking park users and residents to help.

Parks maintenance workers, who log their time in 15-minute increments, spent 13,000 hours picking up trash last year, Parks Director Lynn Zwaagstra said.

The city has 68 parks and 22 open spaces. Zwaagstra says there are 24 employees in the field and they touch 44 of those parks each day.

The city says the time workers are spending picking up trash could be used to develop open spaces owned by the city. There are 22 open spaces that are not maintained that could be developed into parks.

Kirkland has many waterfront parks that draw users from throughout the area. There are also many events in the summer that increase park usage.