[Durham INC] FW: No Garbage Fee

[Pat Carstensen]

I am forwarding a electronic copy of the PA position on the budget; a paper copy was passed out at the meeting on Tuesday.  
Regards, pat

From: Frankhyman at liberatedgardener.net
Subject: No Garbage Fee
Date: Tue, 28 May 2013 22:26:12 -0400
To: pats1717 at hotmail.com

Hello all INC delegates and others, here's the text of the People's Alliance's position opposing the the city staff's proposed regressive garbage fee (that also does nothing to promote recycling).
I hope you can bring this before your neighborhood association board for consideration or at the very least share it on any email listserve that you think is appropriate. This proposal only came out in the press a few days ago and the council will likely make a final vote on the budget on June 17th. So time is short to protect middle class and working class neighborhoods from a fee that boosts income equality by favoring corporations and the wealthy (under the cover of helping the poor). 
The handout below is only two short pages. If you have any questions or would like someone to attend a neighborhood discussion on the issue, I would be happy to hear from you and answer your questions or find someone who could do that. 
My name is Frank Hyman, I'm a People's Alliance member  and work with our organization's Economic Inequality Team. You can learn more about this issue in an op-ed that will run in the Durham News this Sunday. And you can reach me at my cell 919-824-2239 or email at frankhyman at liberatedgardener.net.   
thanks ! Frank
Durham
People’s Alliance Opposes Garbage FeePeople’s
Alliance has a long history of opposing regressive solid waste fees since at
least 1993. City Manager Bonfield proposes to add an $18/year flat fee to raise
about $1.2 million/year. The fee would appear on water bills of homeowners,
home renters and occupants of small apartments (and likely small businesses)
that use garbage carts picked up by city trucks. Corporations, businesses and
larger apartments that use private contractors would not pay the fee. Bonfield
says this would be “fair” since those entities don’t depend on city trucks.But
there are five things wrong with this proposal.1)   It’s
regressive. A half-cent property tax increase would raise the same amount of
money ($1.2M) but cost the owner of a $100,000 house only $5/year (vs.
$18).  Have a home valued above $360,000? You pay less with a fee; anyone
below that pays more. Large corporations also win: a fee spares Southpoint
Mall, for instance, from paying an additional $85,000 a year to keep our city
clean. The fee undermines working families. It rewards the wealthy and
corporations.2)   It’s
a case of the regressive-fee-camel getting its nose under the
working-family’s-tent. The proposed fee only covers replacing worn out city
trucks. Doesn’t that imply it won’t be long before they bump up the fee to
pay for recycling trucks? Solid waste salaries? The whole department? The
parks department too? Corporations don’t use that either.3)   It’s
not really a service fee. Someone who dumps tons of garbage pays the same as
someone who generates little. So it doesn’t even create an incentive to
recycle.4)   Businesses
shouldn’t help pay for residential garbage collection? That begs the question:
“why should homeowners pay the cost of the fire department’s ability to manage
tall building fires—corporations should cover that with a fee.” But we all
benefit generally from city services and pay into a general fund for that
reason.5)  
The idea that it’s “fair” because only people that use the service are paying
for it, is akin to taxing only parents for schools, since other people don’t
have kids in the system. I don’t think this is a tax philosophy that we
want to see grow.And
a small property tax increase to cover the cost of garbage trucks could also be
stretched just enough to cover the unfortunate hike on monthly DATA bus fares
that the city manager has also put in this proposed city budget. People’s
Alliance asks the City Council to turn down this regressive garbage fee
proposal and cover the costs with a modest and fair property tax increase that
saves working families a lot of money over time. Citizens
can weigh in by writing to the council at council at durhamnc.gov and write in
all caps in the subject line (so they see all the responses easily) NO GARBAGE
FEE. Even just scrolling over their messages they'll pick up on
that. If you can, please write them before Monday, June 3rd, when they will have a public hearing on the budget. Thank you.www.durhampa.org




 		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://rtpnet.org/pipermail/inc-list/attachments/20130530/64060342/attachment.html>