We had a mayor asking questions here not long ago and he stated they had a forced trash service . Now we are going to vote on it . They atre holding public discussion this month before they vote .
We have several private carriers right now with one having the lion share of the business . These people built their business just like you did , one customer at a time . As far as Im concerned they own their customer base.
The city plans to have a forced service that will be put on the light and water bill. Of course they will take some extra money for handling it . They say what ever percent of business the contractors have now is the share they will recieve for they will sub it back out to them. I question placement of city contracts without bidding procedure .
Also the charges will be assesed per water meter . If I have a house vacant thats sitting there and I hook up water , it will automatically get charged a trash fee. Same thing with an owner being in the nursing home . We must have power on and water on to maintain the residence requardless . Seems weve lost the right to do our own hauling too or its a moot point as we will be charged for it whether we use it or not.
I think its a money base decision to put more money into goverment . It loses the competition of of a right to choose the best price vs the best service. I can see it now that the city will have several price increases just as we are paying the highest water in the valley on record at this present time .
Seems any time goverment messes with somthing its going to cost more money with less service to the people . Its not broke now why fix it ?
Any experience with this subject?
Tim
Replies
Government provided trash service is fairly prevelent where I am.
but not every town, dump space is the big factor.
When we moved here we either went to the dump or hired a private service. The dump closed and the town now provides the service, which I believe is bid.
Some places have transfer stations, places where you bring your ttrash and from there is removed (put in the big trash trilers like contractors often use). some places charge per load some as part of something else, others as partof RE tax.
Whenever gov't takes over, some business loses.
The system you describe where everyone gets the same share they currently have, doesn't allow a company to grow.
bobl Volo, non valeo
Baloney detecter
They talked about something like that where I live - Bid out the trash hauling and force everyone in town to use whatever hauler the city picked. We either used THEIR hauler or didn't have garbage service.
In the end, the people wanted to have free choice and won out.
No government regs would be nice but, as usual, there's always some screwed up slob that doesn't dump his trash or worse, dumps it on the side of the road someplace and so we've got rules, everyone has to suffer with (live by). When all is said and done, everyone lives in a cleaner and better looking surroundings. If everyone cleaned up their own crap then we wouldn't need regulation but some idiots need quidence for the simplest of responsiblilies, ie. read breathing. We have mandatory garbage pickup and you have to pay or they stick it on your property taxes or fine you outright. With every trash bill payer, the garbage hauler sends out two free bulk trash passes per year so that if you need to take some old use sofa or other trash to the dump once in a while, it's free as long as you can prove you live within the district. Even with all the free stuff we still have a few .ssholes that don't seem to get the picture. Can't imagine what it would look like if we didn't have mandatory trash rules and regs.Two guys caught last year were the typical losers...white, early 20's , semiliterate, long hair and living with their parents. Makes you wonder what this country is coming to.
>>>>Two guys caught last year were the typical losers...white, early 20's , semiliterate, long hair and living with their parents. Makes you wonder what this country is coming to.
That wouldn't happen to have been on thanksgiving day, would it ?Lots of choppers and cop cars around ? Lots of pictures being taken ? Sniffer dogs and tape measures all over the place ? Plenty of writing of notes on the backs of pics being done ?
Geekbox hero who once visited the glass city.
In three part harmony?
Ugha Chaka! Ugha Chaka! Ugha, Ugha, Ugha, Chaka!
Ask Alice.
Geekbox hero who once visited the glass city.
FATHER RAPERS!
Ugha Chaka! Ugha Chaka! Ugha, Ugha, Ugha, Chaka!
we have free trash pickup in the city.so called free, in order to annex into the city the local government must promise something free. Free trash pickup, free fire protection, free police protection, but what happen is they raise your property tax and sales tax. So the smart ones move out into the county. That leaves those that are unable to afford to move stuck in the city. low income , elderery. And those that are unemployed get a new county job riding the garabage trucks.Its all about money, in order to raise tax they must give something you think is free. I rather pay the $7 a month for private pickup.. 2+3=7
>>"That leaves those that are unable to afford to move stuck in the city. low income , . . . ."
I agree. It's called adverse selection and it's a major problem. Need to attract and keep enough folks who can pay to cover those who can't. Conservative fiscal policy with liberal social policy -- always a tension between the two.
Seeking perfection in an imperfect world is a fool's errand. Making something look perfect is a whole 'nother story . . . .
The post by Phill describes it here and NO.
The council has been been in a move to reach a higher level standard for several years now . They have attacked several different projects. One was the streets paid for by the people living on them. They finally settled on the streets being paid for people doing the building . They also added sidewalks and the cities engineering fees as wel as all utilitiy costs for lines. . And now this .
In my mind they want a rich looking city . The problem with that is the costs have skyrocketed in buying lots and building as they have doubled the fees just for building permits. The other costs are passed on to the developer to split the costs per lot for the other things,.
The results so far;
The developers are finishing their investments in the additions they own and saying no thanks to new ones in the city. They are now opening "country additions" in the county where regulations dont apply except for water and sewer by the state health department. That offers 3 acre lots just "out side" of town. Through the peoples choice decisions it lessons city income for those homes are lost to the city. I would guess the next idea by the fathers would be to expand the city limits. So it goes.
The fathers thought it would make a better place to live but the truly well off people are building out side the perimeters. So , the new money is leaving while the old money is dieing leaving the town with less folks to pay the higher taxes and fees. The developers are finding it much more sellable and profitable to build out side the city . So the poor remains to finance the rich looking city.
NO has the same problem since they lost their qualified residents that dont plan on returning which leaves the poor in place. Arkansas for one plans on keeping the residents they gained with good jobs and a strong economy. After all the new residents are making it stronger.
Tim
It won't be long before the county catches up with the city.The expenses of government have gone up everywhere, and basic property taxes (or whatever passes for local taxes) have not, in general, kept up with rising costs, especially with less money coming from the state and federal levels.Making developers pay for roads and other basic infrastructure costs is only reasonable. Out in the county they may get away with an inch of asphalt over two inches of gravel, but then the HOs will be stuck with a big repair bill in the future. Better to invest in decent roads to begin with and then have the city maintain them -- fewer "surprises" for HOs down the road.Certainly NO has a problem, but it's really no different than any other city with a deteriorating tax base. Sometimes clear-thinking leadership can turn things around, but (especially given the lack of that commodity) often additional state or federal aid is needed. (Or else the city just effectively "de-annexes" the most blighted areas and tries to survive as a smaller entity.)
If ignorance is bliss why aren't more people
happy?
It's always been gov't run and gov't regulated locally. This was right embarassing, too, not so long ago, when the regulators forbid the cities from running their own dumps, too (so much for the "all under one umbrella, so's we can all get along arguement").
The landfill is now out of the county, requiring a transfer station and hiring of contract haulers--who have the lowest-paying, most-endorsements-needing, OTR driver jobs always needing filling.
Another side effect of the one-stop regulatory process is that they ran out of town all but one bulk trash & dumpster operator. We are, just now, a decade & half later, starting to see some signs of choice creep in. With a "gotcha" that anybody wanting to get into the biz pretty much cannot work in the city limits without the permission of the one "licensed" waste handling company.
There's arguments on both sides here. Where I live there are three different haulers who visit (at one point it was five). That's a lot of trucks running up and down the street, a lot of duplication of effort, etc. So there's an advantage to having a single designated hauler.
OTOH, folks want freedom of choice, and they want the improved service that (presumably) comes with competition. And they hate being told what to do by the government.
IMO, the best solution, in a reasonably large town, would be to divide up the town into sections and let the haulers bid for sections. Presumably haulers would end up with about the same number of homes as they have now, the public would get the advantage of competitive bidding, and there'd be only one truck on a given street.
Keep in mind that in many communities garbage collection is a part of the public utilities operation. And even when this isn't the case it's common to require that folks have a contracted service vs hauling their own.
Re unoccupied homes, there could be a provision in the regs that you could declare a home unoccupied and forgo the collection fee. Otherwise the fee would be collected -- letting folks haul their own garbage is an invitation for them let it pile up or dump it in the countryside.
happy?
In our community we have 1 waste hauler, and it is bided out every three years. We are in a city, pop. of 6,000. and hauler takes 2 days to do the entire town.
Waste hauling here is very competive, our rates have dropped approx. $3.00 a stop when a new guy came in town and under bid every one. We wrap a bunch of features in our contract, recycling & yard waste, and anything that 2 guys can lift are part of the contract.
The advantage to having 1 hauler has been mentioned, fewer trucks up and down the streets. The number of stops are perrty much based on water bills, i stop = 1 water meter, an apartment house of 4 units would be 4 stops.
The fee is placed on the tax bill as a special assesment, and I belive the city charges a 1 1/2% as an adminastrative fee for collection. Both twp's next to us have different haulers. At the last bid the hauler wanted to add in a clause that all commercial dumpsters are to be from there company, that didn't fly.
In the town where I live, population about 27,000. the city provides refuse and recycling services. the trucks are city owned and the folks on them are city employees. There is a fee for the service added to the water and sewer billing.
But you don't have to use the city service or pay for it if you don't, you can contract with a private carrier for residential collection. The city only provides curb side service, they won't go down a drive way or come through the alley in back. The private carriers will. I just noticed the other day that for an extra fee one of the private companies will go into your back yard and pick up the containers and them return them when empty.
Commercial pickup with the extra large semi size containers appears to be only private carriers.
We have it here. It's not too bad. It's bid every three years, but it seems that the two big dogs are the only ones to get it. Truthfully they are the only two I would trust to do it. The county still has independants and it's a joke.
We are billed by the trash hauler every three months. They had talked about adding the billing onto taxes or the water bill etc. But it was shot down everytime. I don't know the policy on vacant houses though.
Ugha Chaka! Ugha Chaka! Ugha, Ugha, Ugha, Chaka!
Trash is always an issue.
No set service, especially without a designated dump or tranfer station to draw off the civic minded willing to be independently responsible, leads to random dumping. Also 'creative' disposal methods like burning in the back yard. Always a smell one associates with high-end, high-class housing. A lingering pong that seems to cling for weeks.
Individual, by address, unmetered and non-mandatory service is popular until people get into it. Had it once and when people figure out they can save the $15 a month they stop paying. Which means they start filling their neighbors cans in early morning 'drive-by dumpings' on the way to work, they dump in commercial dumpsters or they toss it out in any suitable, unguarded, site. The people in charge of the local scenery, commercial customers and those foolish enough to still pay for residential trash pickup are seldom pleased by this.
This is particularly troublesome for construction dumpsters when the general gets a fresh 20 yard dumpster delivered on a Friday evening and rolls in Monday to find it filled to overflowing with residential garbage not of his making.
Mandatory metered service is not much better as people seek to move the weight of garbage from their trash can to their neighbors or commercial properties.
Mandatory unmetered service is far better but I still resent that I pay for far more than I get. The huge container I pay to get emptied weekly is large enough to last a large family perhaps ten days. For me this equates to several months.
One tip that may help is that generally electrical service can be linked to mandatory trash service. If they don't have electrical service it can generally be assumed they are not producing much trash. Water is less reliable a link as many utilities don't actually disconnect water even with extended non-payment. It is often seen as a life-safety for any residents and a sanitation risk to the community. A far greater potential cost than carrying a few deadbeats.
Such compromises of individual liberties and choice are difficult. At best the service is decent, the trash remains mostly where it should and the behavioral and financial burden is not too great on anyone. There really should be a better way. And as soon as someone identifies this new way I'm sure we will all jump on the bandwagon. Until then everyone gets to bitch, complain and make due with what we have now.
So it goes.
To all of you ;
Some of the points for it is what the council people site in their answer.
One council woman gets "trashed" in her dumpster every week she says since its in an alley out of sight . Monday morning comes and shes full . Shes sick and tired of it obviously.
Another councilman works for the recycle company. Thats the biggest stink right now as he takes a check from both the city and the company. Hes also pushing for forced recycleing. He wants the plastic separated as yet glass and metals. The metals are worth money in big lots. Who gets that money?
They were going for a city wide ban on burning but ran into hell on earth. The trash service contractors would not even take leaves as they are not set up for it . I taked to one such contractor and he said it takes a special truck . Its a mounted back hoe on a truck with grabs and its huge . On certain days they were going to do pick up of those items separate but the city had to fund the labor and equipment. They are too tight and only money hungry. They didnt think it would be a good move to hire city employees and maintain the trucks.
They were also going to pick up couches, chairs , fridges , etc , but they would take a dump truck and a lift like Lowes has etc. They dropped that too.
Seems subbing to contractors willing to bid and charging an administration fee not yet set was the path of leat resistence.
Another reason was to CLEAN UP the city. I dont think switching trash carriers is going to do it . <G> That still leaves front yards full in some cases of burnable debri and household items such as commodes adorning the sides of walks and driveways . I dont get it . If they would gaureentee to clean up the city of all items I would gladly pay double so its not the cost , its the end result.
Since I wont notice any thing different I dont think its cool . I pay a commercial hauler every month and dont have any trash. I pay my bill and keep my place clean . Is this my problem? I have a dumpster trailer and a flat bed that I haul use in hauling things from my home , rentals , and jobs . Im equipped. No thanks . But nope , its mandatory. I dont like to be told and charged with my water bill . I only pay 10 dollars per month for my trash servivce now , and Im quite happy.
I dont think its right to tax the whole town with a small percentage of problem makers. I think the answer is to levy fines or shut off services to those exellent individuals who want to run a hood in the earth. Sure , I have some properties that the hoods need to be cleaned up but this wont get it done .
I guess my question to all of you is ;
Did this clean up your town??????????
Tim
> I dont think its right to tax the whole town with a small percentage
> of problem makers. Then you don't think you should pay for police service?
If ignorance is bliss why aren't more people
happy?
Then you don't think you should pay for police service?
No I guess I dont.
When I was the building inspector the people doing the building paid for it , not the all the people .
I dont pay for all the building contrators as a home owner or the town mechanics either.
I believe in private interprize. Those that dont arent normally the ones in business .
Anyway all the building mechanics paid for their own respective permits , building reviews , and such. Thats a separte principle than police that patrols the city and answers calls . For that the people get a city wide service and saftey of sorts . I think we should all pay for police. On the other hand we only pay for the utiliites we use and if we dont want it we dont have it hooked up. Mandatory trash service off water meters to me isnt democracy . I actually question that its a legal move . In my state if you want to build your own house , wire it and plumb it , you may if you can pass the inspections and you still are charged for them. I guess I was under the primass that was fair and thought I had the right but mebbe I was wrong. This makes about the same sense as having to buy our cars from the city that has taken bids to get them from the cheapest dealers so this year everyone will have to drive Fords. I still dont have the right to haul my own trash as I will be billed off a water meter. And at what cost and for what type of service ? If I dont like the job my service is doing now I simply fire him with a little note and my final check. That wont be possble if this flies .
Tim
I say, " Lets git our guns and shoot the trouble makers".
Just sit tight and ignore those helicopters overhead. They are just there to help you.
Seeking perfection in an imperfect world is a fool's errand. Making something look perfect is a whole 'nother story . . . .
Did this clean up your town??????????
Yes. If a slob has to go out of his way to clean up something it won't get done. Give the same guy a place, 10 feet away, to get rid of junk or trash and it's much more likely to happen.
In a town of 35k, the city hauls all the trash and they'll pick up anything you put out in, on, under or beside the trash cans or dumpster. Big stuff gets hauled free twice a year--including cars/bathtubs/couches/dog houses/etc. Leaves go into special bags and are picked up separately and composted.
For those who don't want to clean up their yards, many churches and do-gooders spend time asking if they can move the toilet in the yard or trash on the fence the 10 feet to the trash can.
Recently moved to a town that doesn't touch the trash and awards it to one company who charges for service directly and it shows. Look in any alley and there is junk and trash everywhere. The service is crappy and they don't give a rats ars until the bidding starts for the next contract. Two days ago I was actually told by a driver, "Sorry I can't empty your dumpster this week since my truck is almost full." What kind of crap is that? The #### running the trucks make minimum wage and they're worth not much more. Not only that, but the dumpsters look like helll and it's more fitting an industrial park than residential. Costs are unreal--probably twice what we used to pay the city.
"Another councilman works for the recycle company. Thats the biggest stink right now as he takes a check from both the city and the company. Hes also pushing for forced recycleing. He wants the plastic separated as yet glass and metals. The metals are worth money in big lots. Who gets that money?"Doesn't your city (or the state) have any conflict of interest rules/laws?As you describe it the whole thing seems to be a strange hybrid.Now I have seen systems where the city provides trash pickup using city employees/equipment.Where the city contracts out of bid for trash collection. Depending on the size of the city it might be one or more contracts. Typically for 1-3 years and then they are put up for rebid.And that bid covers more than just cost, but also things like recycling and large trash pickup.BTW, this is sometime a hybrid system with the trash company doing the "garbage" and the city using their trucks to do an annual large item pickup.And the last system is private pay. Now I have seen some "regualtion" on this by doing thing like puting the city into zone and assigning each zone to day so that you don't have trash out 6 days a week.with the system that your city has proposed I agree all they are doing is to put them self inthe middle. I doubt that the will be collecting enough extra for it to be a "paying" proposition. They have now put themself into the middle without having any control.That means that they will be getting the calls for missed trash pickups and spilled trash. But they can't "fire" the trash company or threaten their contract."They were going for a city wide ban on burning but ran into hell on earth. The trash service contractors would not even take leaves as they are not set up for it . I taked to one such contractor and he said it takes a special truck . Its a mounted back hoe on a truck with grabs and its huge"Arround here they use the same trucks. leaves are in put into disposabvle paper bags, limbs and brush have to be cut to 4ft lenght and bunbled into one that a single person can pickup. It goes into standard bucket and then compressed.Now whoever get the stuff does need chippers and shreders to process it, but that is a different story.MO has had a "no yard trash" rule several years so it is no problem here.
It's added onto the water bill here also. At one point I had a dumpster that was emptied on a weekly basis, but I was still forced to pay for the trash service. I called to get around it, and they said I couldn't because my address was zoned residential.
I live in Minneapolis, we have city provided service. You have two city provided options for a trash can size (and price), the larger size is the default size (and appropriately so). The city will also pick up used appliances, furniture, and carpet (cut up) and yard waste (no construction debris). Billed with water and sewer as most city programs. There is also a credit given for participating in the citywide recycling program. There are both city crews and contract (with the city) haulers that service different areas of the city,
St. Paul accross the river has no mandatory program, each homeowner contracts individually for service.
Here are the differences I've noticed. In Mpls. there is onw truck that comes down the alley or street weekly, (or two on the recycling weeks) compared to the four or more that roll down the St.Paul neighborhoods on trash day. There is a huge difference in the amount of junk in the back yards between the two cities, with Mpls. yards being cleaner. This is especially true as you move into the lower income areas of the city.
There has been talk from time to time of going private, but most city residents prefer the system we have in place.
If you get trash pickup as part of your property taxes instead of as a separate charge, and you itemize deductions on your federal return, you get trash pickup that is subsidized by the American taxpayer.Not that I approve of deductions, just pointing out that for the homeowner, there is an advantage to paying for services through local taxes.
There you are ragginng on those drunken Irishmen again!
If ignorance is bliss why aren't more people
happy?
Sounds like an excellent $0.39 solution opportunity waiting to unfold.