Just got back from walking the dogs, and only about half my neighbors had their garbage cans on the curb for our first day of once-a-week pickup. We’re one of the neighborhoods that moved from alley pickup to curb service, and it looks like it’s going to take people a while to figure this thing out.

Mary Nix, who oversees the city’s sanitation department, was gracious enough to answer a few questions about why we had to move from the alley to the curb. Her comments are after the jump, plus a picture that should answer most questions.

Yes, that’s the garbage truck the city is using for once-a-week. It’s wider than the old trucks — too wide for some alleys, mostly in the north and northeast parts of the city. Hence, those of us with narrow alleys have to move to the curb.

It turns out that many of the alleys are not technically alleys, which accounts for the problem. An alley, which is maintained by the city, is wide enough to accommodate the trucks. A utility easement, which is maintained by our friends at Oncor so they can get to  their electric poles, is not wide enough for the trucks — as the picture shows. Typically, the easements are 10 feet wide, with about 8 feet of pavement. The trucks are about 7 1/2 feet wide.

Nix said that the city had been using the easements for decades and didn’t think much about it until officials started planning for once-a-week. Then they noticed there would be a problem, particularly in older neighborhoods. Newer neighborhoods, she said, have real alleys and not easements.

The difficulty for those of who had to switch is not lugging the carts to the curb. It’s finding a place to keep the carts that isn’t in the alley. I’ve got two gates in my fence, and as manly as I like to think I am, there isn’t any way I can drag the carts from the alley and wrangle them through the gates without dumping garbage and recyclables.

Nix said she understands this, and offered several pieces of advice:

• It’s OK to store the bins toward the front of the house and reasonably close to the curb. They just have to be behind "the front line of the house" — that is, any part of the primary structure, parallel with the street. Which is the line of your porch if it’s roofed, but not if it’s uncovered.

• If the cart is broken — and those wheels don’t seem to last very long — call 311 and the city will send a new one or repair the old one.

• Code enforcement will work with neighborhoods that are having difficulty making the transition to the curb, and won’t start writing citations if bins are left in the wrong places.

It’s official — we’re now in a free-fall budget crisis. The city manager said yesterday that most city departments would have to cut their budgets 30 percent, and that police, fire and code compliance — normally beyond budget cuts — would have to trim theirs by 5 percent.

I take no great pleasure in saying I told you so. Or in noting that I have been warning about this for two years and predicted just this in our February East Dallas magazine. (See handy clip and save sales tax chart.) I’d much rather not have this happen, and I’d much rather that someone on the city council or at City Hall had acted responsibly in the spring of 2008 and prepared us for this. Instead, and this is the part that drives me crazy, most of them offered the Alfred E. Neuman response — "What, me worry?" As recently as January, Mayor Park Cities said: "This is very early in the process. It is, in numbers at least, a better situation than we were in last year, but it still means we’ve got challenges."

No, Mr. Mayor. It’s worse. It’s much worse. Isn’t it time you realized that?

That sound coming from City Hall yesterday was a very loud and anguished moan. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the city’s appeal, and the federal government will be allowed to build a wildlife refuge in East Texas where Dallas had planned to build a reservoir. Check out the Texas Conservation Alliance Web site, which has the details.

The decision was a major defeat for city officials, who insist that flooding East Texas is the only way to keep Dallas in water for the rest of this century. Also in their plans: the proposed Marvin Nichols reservoir on the Sulphur River. They were so upset, in fact, that Dallas’ Only Daily Newspaper reported that hardly anyone wanted to talk about the Supreme Court decision. When that happens, it’s because they didn’t expect to lose. Interestingly, the story discusses alternatives to building this reservoir, and none of the alternatives include increased conservation measures.

The city has earmarked about $2.2 million in the 2009-10 budget to repair potholes, or just one percent of the $2 billion total. And people wonder why I get so irritated about the priorities at City Hall.

Potholes, of course, will be big news this week — and next week and the week after and the rest of the year, thanks to this winter’s record snow and the city’s failure to spend $2.6 million (another one percent) on pothole prevention that might have saved us from some of the axle-benders. So, as you bounce up and down on our chuckhole-strewn roads, think about how the bureaucrats at City Hall eliminated money for highway repair but kept money for something called a vertiport, so helicopters can land downtown on the taxpayer’s dime.

After the jump, how the pothole budget works and what could have been trimmed to find money to fix — and prevent — them.

The good news is that Gilbert Aguilar, who oversees the street department, assured me that all the potholes will be fixed, regardless of budget limitations. The city will use top-grade materials, he said, and won’t cut corners. Aguilar was generous and gracious with his time, and seemed genuinely concerned that taxpayers get their money’s worth. And, he said, as bad as this pothole season seems, it isn’t the worse in his 31 years in the street department.

The bad news is that much of this mess could have been avoided, he said. The city cut $2.6 million from the budget for what’s called micro-slurry, which seals the road pavement and prevents water from getting in. Water, which seeps into the road and then freezes, is the prime cause of potholes. Joe Button, a senior research fellow at the Texas Transportation Institute in College Station, says micro-slurry is the key to pothole prevention.

So, no micro-slurry. That leaves us with the $2.2 million for pothole repairs. (There is an item in the budget called pothole repairs, at $340,000, but that is just one kind of pothole. The budget actually covers three kinds of repairs). As always, in trying to decode the budget, I’m hampered by its artificial organization. Street repairs are included in the Economic Vibrancy section, for example, and not Public Safety.

But as near as I can tell, the budget numbers for potholes, even at $2.2 million, aren’t very real. The cost of asphalt has risen substantially in the past several years, said Button, yet the budget for pothole repairs seems to be about the same over that period. I honestly can’t figure out why that would be.

Which leaves us with the $4.8 million question. Where do we find the money to restore micro-slurry and come up with a meaningful budget number for potholes? Because, if we’re going to find the money to fix potholes this year, the money will have to come from somewhere else. Here are a few thoughts, and all I did was go through the Economic Vibrancy section. You can find your own by accessing the 2009-10 budget here. I included the page numbers for the budget PDF in the $5 million of cuts I identified.

• The vertiport (page 85, Economic Vibrancy), which will cost the city almost one-quarter of a million dollars to operate. How many of us know that the city operates a helicopter landing pad downtown?

• Some $1.25 million for the Trinity River Corridor project (page 81, Economic Vibrancy). It’s not getting built, and that’s got nothing to do with my feelings about the project one way or the other. There is no money, so why are we planning as if there is?

• About one-half million dollars for international business development (page 35, Economic Vibrancy). What’s the point of bringing visitors here to pitch them on how wonderful Dallas is when the roads are nothing but potholes?

• Some $3 million more by using one of Mayor Park Cities’ favorite tools — privatization. Let’s sell Dallas Executive Airport (what used to be called Redbird) and the Farmers’ Market. If it’s good enough for the zoo, why not for Redbird (page 19, Economic Vibrancy) and the Farmers’ Market (page 19, Economic Vibrancy)?

Remember how much fun we had talking about Oncor after the snow storm? Well, now the city council is going to do it. Councilwoman Angela Hunt found six other council members who signed her request to ask Oncor to attend a city council hearing about the company’s escapades during the storm. No word yet on when the hearing will be — or even if Oncor will participate.

Oak Cliff’s Delia Jasso and Dave Neumann both signed the request, though it’s a bit odd to see Neumann aligned with Hunt given their differences over the Trinity toll road. I guess angry constituents helped him make up his mind.

Just got off the phone with Mary Nix, who oversees Dallas’ sanitation efforts, and she says the city is rescinding its call first policy about downed tree limbs from last week’s storm. Just put them on the curb, she said, and they’ll eventually be picked up. It may take a couple of weeks, but the trucks will get to them.

Nix said officials realized that there were so many downed limbs that it wasn’t practical to ask residents to call 311 first. I told her that was a fine decison, and that people around here would be glad to hear it. Expect the official announcement to be made on Wednesday.

Dallas city officials, who were remarkably silent during last week’s storm, have finally been heard from. They have decided not to punish us for putting fallen tree limbs on the curb before our appointed bulky trash pickup. That was amazingly considerate of them, wasn’t it? Of course, there is a catch (click the line that says more information; the line that says service information is the city furlough news release). You have to call 311 first to tell them you’re putting the trash on the curb or you’ll be cited.

This is a joke, right?

There is good news in the city’s December sales tax collections — we were only 6.2 percent under budget, the best performance of the fiscal year. Yes, that would be sarcasm.

For 2009-10, we’re 9.5 percent behind the forecast, which insists that we will collect more than we did in 2008-09 — even though the bosses downtown have repeatedly told us this year would be worse than last year. So far, we’re 9.8 percent behind last year. The rest of the bad news? The total for December was the lowest since December 2005. Will we ever be able to fill a pot hole again?

Here is our handy clip and save sales tax chart for the 2009-10 fiscal year. The basics: The sales tax accounts for abut 22 percent of the city general budget; another 43 percent comes from property tax receipts. The official figures are on the state comptroller Web site. The months listed on that site are, for accounting purposes, about two months ahead, so the February result that is listed is for December.

Now that Dallas police chief David Kunkle is ready to hit the road, the city is putting on a short traveling show to solicit "input from residents and business owners for the process of selecting a new police chief," or so says the release that showed up in our office today. Also in the release: "The next Police Chief will serve all of the diverse communities of Dallas, and it is extremely important that the City hears from those communities and knows what is important to them." Anyway, the meetings are Jan. 25 from 6-7:30 p.m. at City Hall, 1500 Marilla; Jan. 26 from 6-7:30 p.m. at Beckley-Saner Rec Center, 114 W. Hobson; and Feb. 2 from 6-7:30 p.m. at Walnut Hill Rec Center, 10011 Midway. As the release says, "Public input is critical in this process. YOUR opinion can make a difference in who the City hires as the new Police Chief." So there you have it.

The city manager will hold a budget briefing for the council on Wednesday. Should be loads of fun. The best case scenario calls for a $23.8 million deficit, which includes sales tax revenue actually increasing this year.

If that’s not depressing enough, the council and staff will hold something called "Budget Brainstorming Ideas." Some of them are silly, like selling naming rights to allow private companies to use the city’s name — the Acme/City of Dallas Home Warranty Service. But some aren’t. How does eliminating monthly bulk trash pickup sound? The city is conducting a study for just that possibility, which leads me to believe that it has a real chance of happening for the 2010-11 budget year. Not that I warned anyone about this.

Also on the budget front:

• DART wants the the city to pony up cash to build the new downtown rail line near the upcoming convention center hotel. Otherwise, says DART, it won’t have any incentive to put the rail line near the hotel. This hotel thing is working out well, isn’t it?

• People have stopped donating money to the AT&T Performing Arts Center downtown. The recession, of course, is to blame — the center is $24 million, or about 7 percent, short of its fund-raising goal. More worrisome is that some $90 million in pledges have yet to be redeemed. Those of us who were here in the 1980s remember something similar happening with the Meyerson Center in the wake of the savings and loan meltdown; the city had to bail out the project.