WHY I AM VOTING YES ON PROP A

I decided to start this blog four days after the city council meeting (November 2nd maybe a bit more than a year ago). So let me begin with a brief summary: The Jefferson City Council signed a contract with Allied Waste to pick up the garbage. Before the contract, residents had a choice in their garbage delivery: they could opt out, use a bag system, or subscribe to the service. The service included twice a week pickup with two ninety-five gallon garbage cans. The new contracted service no longer allows any resident to opt out, delivery is now only once a week, the cans are sixty-five gallons (so we lose fifty gallons of volume) and one of the cans is designated for recycling only--but no glass—so really our actual capacity is much smaller. The new service is also more expensive,

I did not even know about this issue.(Perhaps one reason why is because public comments are always at the end of long council meetings—but that’s another issue.) Nonetheless, I do not like the new system. Mandatory does not go well with me, the way the garbage cans are stacked up and down the streets (hence the blog's title--Attack of the Garbage Cans)does not go well with me, the way some cans are already overflowing because of the once a week delivery schedule does not go well with me, the hardship for many residents who cannot afford a mandatory pickup (and I need to let you know every unit in every duplex apartment unit and every home has to have a garbage can for the residents living there--you are not allowed to share garbage cans) does not go well with me.

I've asked around and I understand that even though this process has been ongoing for the last two years, few residents even knew anything about it.

I understand why. At the council meeting I spoke twice--once about the garbage can problem and again about a moratorium on new sidewalk construction. I would never have known about the sidewalk issue--what town does not want sidewalks?-- if I hadn't attended the meeting. Obviously the word did not get out.

VOTE YES ON PROP A.