By Aleasha Sandley, Herald Bulletin Staff Writer
June 11, 2009 11:14 pm
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ANDERSON — City residents could soon see a trash pickup fee of $10.75 a month added to their utility bills if the City Council adopts a trash fee ordinance once more.
The council on Thursday approved the ordinance on first and second readings. It will be placed on the agenda for next month’s meeting for its third and final reading.
Council members are considering the fee to make up for projected losses in the general fund caused primarily by statewide property tax caps. Financial consultant Jim Steele said the city would experience a $1.5 million shortfall in the general fund this year with the trash fee and a $2.1 million shortfall without it.
Next year, the shortfall is projected at $2.8 million with the fee and $4.4 million without it as property tax caps continue to decrease.
“This sounds pretty bleak, but if you look at projections from three months ago ... we’ve made significant improvement since that point in time,” said Steele, who served as city controller in the 1980s in the Thomas R. McMahan administration.
City officials have made budget cuts and are considering policies to cut back on labor costs to balance the budget.
The initial readings of the trash fee ordinance passed the council by an 8-3 vote with council members Art Pepelea, Rodney Chamberlain and David Eicks voting against it.
“You’re putting a lot of pressure on us to make a decision tonight,” Chamberlain said, asking that the matter be tabled until the next meeting.
Board of Works Chairman Greg Graham said a public hearing would be held before next month’s council meeting to allow Anderson residents to give their input to the ordinance before it was considered for its final reading.
Council President Rick Muir asked that the ordinance be amended from a $9.75 trash pickup fee to a $10.75 fee to account for recycling services. The original ordinance called for the lower fee and the deletion of recycling services, asking those who wanted to recycle to pay for their own services.
Graham said only about 10-15 percent of city residents recycled even though the city had been paying for those services for everyone.
“I would hope if this passes that we do a better job of getting people to do recycling,” Muir said.
Eicks said he opposed adding the trash fee altogether and wouldn’t vote for adding another dollar onto it when so few city residents recycled.
Instead, he proposed using the city’s buying power to take bids and find a preferred contractor residents could use to pick their own trash pickup plans.
“That way a 75-year-old woman that could have it picked up once a month would not be paying the same as a family of eight would pay,” he said.
Although allowing residents to pick their own plans could result in some not paying at all, Eicks said any fee the city added for trash would result in some residents not paying.
The city would continue to have a “no trash left behind” policy, picking up all trash regardless of payment. If residents didn’t pay their trash fee, they would be subject to a 10 percent penalty and attorney’s fees associated with recovering the money owed.
Graham said there was no way to adjust the trash fee according to how much garbage a residential unit put out.
“There’s no way to calculate how much trash this person puts in compared to how much this person puts in,” he said.
Resident Rob Jozwiak said the city should consider using its own resources to pick up trash instead of contracting the job to BestWay disposal.
Councilwoman Pam Jones said the city had looked into the option.
“The cost was prohibitive by the time we would obtain all the equipment we need,” she said.
Resident Mikeal Vaughn read a letter to the council, in which he said the trash fee was another one in a long line of fees added by city officials, including increased sewer rates, electric rates and a wheel tax.
“The residents of this city cannot afford continuous increases in fee,” he said. “Many forced to choose between buying food or medicine or pay to have their trash removed will look to their health first. I would ask this administration, this council, to look for alternatives before continuingly coming to the taxpayers for more and more money.”
Eicks said city officials would make available in the clerk’s office reports on how they spent the recently approved $3.50 a month storm water fee and the status of federal stimulus money for which they applied.
Muir said the trash fee was necessary to the city’s operation and continued services.
“We don’t have enough revenue to continue business as usual,” he said.
Contact Aleasha Sandley: 640-4805, aleasha.sandley@heraldbulletin.com.
In other business, the City Council:
• Approved on first and second readings an ordinance limiting times allowed for fireworks use to between the hours of 5 p.m. and two hours after sunset on June 29-30 and July 1-3 and 5-9, between the hours of 10 a.m. and midnight July 4 and between the hours of 10 a.m. Dec. 31 and 1 a.m. Jan. 1. Violators would be warned on the first violation and fined $25 on the second and between $50 and $500 on the third. Councilmen Ollie Dixon, David Eicks, Rodney Chamberlain and Art Pepelea voted against the measure.
• Approved resolutions authorizing the transfer of funds between accounts in the fire department and designating economic revitalization areas for a community development house and builder Arbor Investments.
• Tabled a resolution on global warming and climate change
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