INC NEWS - yard waste figures make cents

[RW Pickle]

I'm sure some of the questions I asked in the last post will take a day or
two for the Director to get together, so just for fun, I calculated the
cost per day of the Yard Waste Program this way:

If there are 18,000 customers (I don't know the exact number, but that's
close), and each one pays $60/yr, that comes to a little over $1M a year.
If we divide that figure by the number of weeks (52) and then the number
of pickup days a week (4 I believe; Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri), the current
yard Waste Program cost amounts to around $5200 a day. That seems low
considering manpower, trucks, fuel, maintenance, etc., but I assume we'll
get the real  figures here shortly from the Director. I'll get them from
Budget next week if we haven't heard by then. It's almost like the
taxpayers are being fined $5200 a day because of poor decision making. As
a subscriber to the service, it bothers me that we're wasting any money at
all. And thinking about rolling the yard waste service out across the City
for everyone at this point really scares me. Since it'll be tax funded,
we're likely to see them skyrocket when everyone gets on-board. Especially
if the Virginia tax on waste that crosses its borders passes at a large
dollar amount.

Just thinking about what that extra money could buy (hey, it's our tax
dollars and subscriber fees), that would be 2 outfitted Police bicycles a
day, a new Police cruiser a week, more than a mile of sidewalk installed
per month, and if it went on for a year, that much will almost pay for the
complete repairs to Lake Mickie Dam, one our main water sources. But only
if we stop wasting the money in a duplicated service scenario. Sure it's a
hard decision. But it just makes good cents. As you often hear (especially
around decisions like this), if the city were a business, it'd be bankrupt
because of the way it thinks. This is a good example. We don't need 2
trucks and 2 crews doing the same thing. It's a waste. And if the
education the Director mentions (he said the education would be more
expensive than keeping the duplicate system like it is) is more expensive
than $5K+ a day, I'd have to wonder what type of new educational system he
plans to roll out. I can't recall any Solid Waste education that has cost
just what one day of the wasted duplication of service is costing now.
Tags on can and notes in water bills aren't that expensive. That's just
about all it's ever been.

I'd even bet that some of those black plastic trash bags (that we are
supposed to be using) have yard waste in them. Who'd ever know... And in a
green can no less. Sure beats buying a cart and a sticker. I guess we
don't need to buy any more of those paper bags for yard waste. Now that
it's all going to Virginia, they don't care. Why punish us with outdated
regulations. Leaf season is ahead of us and this is something that should
be thought about before it gets here. Heck, divert the money saved by
discontinuing the duplication of service and put it into a truck mounted
leaf suction system. There's an idea for you. We've already probably
wasted enough money to that... And we just keep wasting it every day we
duplicate the service.

Did you hear the City is getting out of the trash can business. Now we're
going to lease them from some company. Like any lease, it's always cheaper
in the short term. And on paper, cheaper always looks better. But Durham
isn't going anywhere and it's the short term thinking that always gets us
in trouble because it ultimately costs us more in the long run.

RWP
27 Beverly