Carrie Carroll's Fact Sheet and My Rebuttals

Below is the Fact Sheet from Carrie Carroll printed on City Of Jefferson City letterhead (though you cannot see the city's symbol in this pasted copy). My comments are in parenthesis.

(My first question--Who paid for this?)

City of Jefferson
FACT SHEET
320 East McCarty
Jefferson City, MO 65101
Contact: Michelle Gleba
(573) 634-6377
mgleba@jeffcitymo.org

On April 5, 2011 Jefferson City voters will be asked to vote on Proposition A. The purpose of this fact sheet is to educate voters about the issue. The ballot language will appear as follows:

PROPOSITION A

Shall the City Code (Chapter 30, Sections 1 and 2) of the City of Jefferson be amended by retaining the requirement that every residence have trash service but eliminating that trash only be collected by an authorized collector?

What will be the effect of PROPOSITION A if it passes?

If PROPOSITION A passes, the city will be in violation of its current trash contract with Allied Waste Services (Republic Services) and could face costly legal action. Termination of the trash agreement would mean city residents and businesses would also have no price control over trash service. It is estimated the residential rates will increase. It is unlikely that any new competitors will enter the market. Residents in the unincorporated areas of the county where there are no limits pay 75 percent more than city residents. There would also be no curbside recycling service.

(According to the contract, there is no real price control now. Before we could dump items on Dix Road for as low as twenty dollars a truck load. The current price is sixty-five dollars and up. I understand this price is going up in April.

Furthermore, there are aspects of the contract that are clearly questionable--everyone regardless of need is forced to pay the same price. Mandatory garbage pick up for each unit and household is the crux of the problem.

Mandatory. That one word is the issue. Vote yes on Proposition A.)

What is citywide trash collection?

Citywide trash collection simply means every resident receives trash collection services including curbside recycling. Trash collection is a municipal responsibility to taxpayers — similar to providing police, fire, snow removal, sewer and other essential municipal services.

(The problem: Yes, we need trash collection, but trash collection that meets the needs of the residents, not trash collection that meets the needs of greedy city and corporate individuals.

"Proxy Statement Filing Years - 2010

Republic Services, Inc. filed the compensation data below on 4/1/2010

James E. O’Connor--2009 Total compensation: 5,676,620

Donald W. Slager--2009 Total compensation: 3,760,792

Tod C. Holmes--2009 Total compensation: 2,097,605

Michael P. Rissman--2009 Total compensation: 812,417

Timothy R. Donovan--2009 Total compensation: 4,841,278

*The above executive compensation data is an excerpt from the proxy statement filed for Republic Services, Inc. on 4/1/2010")

What are the benefits of citywide trash collection?

• The community is cleaner. Trash is removed promptly and not stored on site.

(Garbage falls out of cans and goes all over the ground because robot arms lift up the garbage without regard to litter missing the truck.)

• Illegal burning and illegal dumping in parks, farms and commercial dumpsters are eliminated.

(Legal burning is allowed from November 15 to March 15.)

• The price per household is significantly lower than outside the city.

• Since the city began its current trash and recycling collection, more than 2 million pounds of solid waste has been kept out of the city landfill, extending its life and postponing a very costly replacement.

(We are leasing the city's landfill to Allied Waste. The city, according to the contract, still shares the responsibility for its upkeep.)

Is citywide trash management unusual?

Not at all. The Missouri Municipal League reports that 86 percent of more than 400 cities in Missouri have mandatory service and that number is on the rise. According to a study conducted in 2009, nineteen out of 21 cities in Missouri similar in size to Jefferson City have citywide trash service in which all residents participate.

How did we choose the current system?

In an effort to learn whether residents wanted curbside recycling, the city conducted a pilot program for three months that involved approximately 250 residents. The surveys conducted afterward were overwhelmingly favorable.

The contract with Allied Waste Services was due to expire in 2009. The city opened up the new contract to dozens of potential bidders and conducted a closed bid process. After extensive negotiations and numerous public sessions, the city entered into a contract with Allied Waste Services in November 2009 to offer its residents citywide trash collection and curbside recycling at an affordable price. In order to maintain price controls the contract term runs for six years, ending in 2015.

(Less capacity and not as frequent pick up. How was this better for the city? A closed bid process? What happened to democracy and transparent and open government?)

How do Jefferson City rates compare with other cities, and with areas of the county outside the city?

Jefferson City trash rates are below average. Residents pay on average $15 per month.

(We pay more. Usual rates are per building--never unit. A three unit apartment would have service for the building at fifteen dollars, not the current forty-five. Thus we pay more.)

Residents living in unincorporated areas of the county pay an average of $25 per month and they have no curbside recycling.

(They do not pay per unit.)

What happened to the bags?

Individual trash bag service is no longer available from any major solid waste company. In the past, the cost of bags was heavily subsidized by other users. Bag service is not practical and is very expensive due to the high labor costs associated with having two workers on every truck and the incidence of injuries. Automatic pickup service using bins is the most economical way to pick up residential trash. Plus it reduces the number of plastic bags going into landfills.

(The City of Columbia has affordable trash collection and they use bags.
So do quite a few suburbs in Chicago. In Highland Park, for example, trash collection can be as cheap at eight dollars a month.)

Why do I pay the same even if I have just a small amount of trash?

Actually, the volume of the trash is only one small component of cost (less than 10 percent). Most of the cost is associated with the equipment, fuel and labor that is required to pick up trash at the curb, regardless of how much trash is picked up.

(Actually the city and Allied Waste are ripping us off. We pay more now because we are forced to pay per unit.)

(Vote yes on Proposition A.)