INC NEWS - yard waste program

[Anne Guyton]

The only solution to the money problem is NOT deployment of the entire city at once.  The change over to green carts was not handled this way so why would yard waste?  The cost of the new carts could be spread over time with phased implementation.  There could be a one time charge that subsidized the purchase of the carts, $10, 20 or 30 per household spread out over a year on water bills.  There could be a time period where the carts were free and then you paid for them - the green carts were originally handled this way when curbside collection was voluntary.  The point is that the cost of instituing city-wide yard waste can be worked out.  

Part of the budgeting process should also include a fair assessment of what will be saved by the storm water system not being clogged up, the economic impact of a cleaner more beautiful city, and what the is saved by not cleaning up illegally dumped yard waste.  

A point I have not seen in any of these postings is the savings to each household on income taxes, small though it may be - fees are not tax deductible on the federal return but property tax is.  Returning the cost of yard waste to the general fund would extend that benefit to everyone in the city.  

Anne Guyton
2503 State St

----- Original Message ----
From: RW Pickle <randy at 27beverly.com>
To: Mike - Hotmail <mwshiflett at hotmail.com>
Cc: council at ci.durham.nc.us; inc-list at durhaminc.org
Sent: Friday, December 8, 2006 8:47:10 PM
Subject: INC NEWS - yard waste program

One of the biggest issues in this "roll it out across the City all at one
time and for free" thought process, is the sheer number of carts you'll
need and just what all those carts will cost. Without digging all of it
out and getting the exact figure, it was somewhere near a million dollars
in carts. I don't think you'll get anyone to vote to approve anything like
that. In the past, they couldn't even keep carts of any color. As I
recall, they are about 5,000 green carts behind right now that have holes
in them and are due for replacement. My 2 carts for example; it won't be
long before the whole bottom falls out. But to roll out just the brown
cart program across the City would be too much of a budget crunch.

What I came up with to roll the yard waste fee back to $30 in the first
year. This was the previous fee before it went up to $60. When the fee was
raised, somewhere around 5500 of the customers quit the service. It still
had over 11,000 customers, so it still had income and continued to grow.
And with the increased fee of $60, the service didn't feel the pinch of
those who left. But out there still are the 5500 (or so; it's hard to know
how many now have re-subscribed since then) customers who quit when the
fees went up and they still have brown carts. So if the fee is rolled
back, you can pick up all these folks that left, without the additionl
cost of carts. This is a real bonus since cart funding is an issue. You'd
still need some carts, but you could pick up a big chunk of customers who
had carts already. You could continue to sell the carts even when the
program fee structure was rolled back so that wouldn't really be a cost
except up front. As they were bought, it would replenish the fund that
bought them in the first place. This is a nice idea, but the way the funds
are now, all the revenue generated from cart sales goes back into the
General Fund. For it to continue to fund carts, a better way would be for
the funds to be held in reserve to buy more carts. Because regarless what
you do, you will always have to get the carts.

By the second year, the $30 fee would be dropped. Or maybe run it for a
couple of years for $30 just to generate additional funds. the folks who
had paid $60 would be happy paying $30, the folks who did pay $30 would
rejoin and be happy to be back, and then you can begin to plan for the
eventual termination of the fee completely as it is rolled out across
town. You'll always needs carts; both brown and green, because they just
wear out and get damaged beyond repair by careless automated truck
operators. Personally, I feel if the automated truck drivers were charged
for the damage they do to carts, that damage would reach all time lows.
It's like anything. If there is no repercussion for damaging the carts,
then why should the driver care? If he had to pay for the ones he damaged,
it would stop.

Even if it is free, not all residents would participate. Leaves, grass,
limbs and the materials found in yard waste typically do not smell like
household waste does. So while everyone would use a green can just to get
the smells away from where they live, there are those who would never do
anything with a brown can. If I'm not mistaken, we came up with a figure
around 50,000 that would be all who would participate in any program that
was rolled out throughout the City. Currently I believe that's about
15,000 short of all the current customer base or roughly 25%.

Regardless of what was done, there are some would never care about leaves
in the storm drainage system.

I believe this plan also called for yard waste to be picked up twice a
month. Because without spending funds on new/additional equipment and
manpower, it would have to be rolled back to every other week just because
of the larger customer base. Having spoken to Randy Smith who heads up
Yard Waste, he thought this was doable.

Just FYI, Donald Long and Patrick Baker are on the list server. So
everytime they get added in the cc field, they get duplicates of these
posts. They'll get tired of reading them if we keep this up.
RWP
27 Beverly








 
____________________________________________________________________________________
Want to start your own business?
Learn how on Yahoo! Small Business.
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/r-index
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.deltaforce.net/mailman/private/inc-list/attachments/20061209/33e8f315/attachment.htm