Glass City Jungle

Notes from the May 18 Agenda Review, this will not be the complete discussion tonight, but it’s the beginning part of what took place. All members of Council were present.

Amend TMC Sec. 963.03(b) to reduce the monthly Refuse Collection Fee to $10.00/$5.00 for seniors

18,800 residents would qualify for the homestead exemption ($5.00)

Collins submitted a different proposal, similar to the one he presented before with the exception of raising the recycling fee to $3.00. His concern is that recycling would decline under the administration’s proposal. That was why McNamara started the discussion on the recycling discount, the 1.6 million in difference can be reduced because of the air space in the landfill and to the tipping fees. His plan also pays for the containers.

Steel said the administration plan is different than before, Herwat said it was, that they felt a standard across the board would be easier to administer. It was felt that the carts alone were an incentive that they don’t need the discount. McNamara said there are two dimensions, breadth of and depth. If ten houses put their cart out with one can in each cart, that would be 100% breadth, same neighborhood, only one person recycles but their can is full, that’s depth. He’s not sure the fee difference is going to change the breadth, the benefit is to the depth. That’s how we save our landfill space.

Herwat said there was a ten percent administrative charge back to bill for trash but they’ve now dropped that to 5%. McNamara wanted to know what the cost per air space was, it was stated it’s 28 dollars per cubic yard, it was not known how much trash that equaled too. McNamara asked about the tipping fees, Collins said when we first started this we were at 16% recycling, the administration said they are still figuring where they are at, 500 tons in December to 2,000 last month in recycling. $2.25 and $5.50 to the State of Ohio per ton for tipping fees. Collins does not agree that the carts will be enough incentive for people to keep recycling if they eliminate the discount.

Herwat said a senior under Collins plan that did not recycle would not get a discount. The administration felt this gives all residents who voted for Issue 5 a discount. McNamara also wanted to know how much tonnage is collected daily and how much space was left in the landfill. Webb expressed disappointment that they didn’t finish this during the budget process, she understands the desire to provide a discount to everyone, she referenced WTOL’s coverage and how the recycling was refused because people were putting things in the recycle carts that were not recycling. This to her supports the incentive aspect, there has to be common ground between seniors and to continue to position our population to recycle. Human beings like to have incentives. Whatever they agree needs to stay in place, to continue to change the fee based on the city’s economic status is irresponsible.

Herwat said the Mayor promised in March that it would be reduced 4 million dollars and the Collins plan is 1.6 million dollars short, do they eliminate the promise to the voters to undo the reciprocity? Webb said there is room for compromise, the two most important goals is to providing relief for a homestead exemption and to provide an incentive. Herwat said the 1.6 million is based on a hope, and they can quantify the administration’s proposal. Webb said we can also quantify the incentive, she rejects the notion that there is no change in the recycling rates without an incentive. Welch felt that the recycling rate continued even after the fee increased proved his point. Webb said most people had not received the bills for the higher fees yet.

Sarantou asked for the best guest estimate on how many are recycling, earlier Welch said he couldn’t estimate but he told Sarantou over 60%. He felt the carts were used and if they limit the amount of trash people can put out they will increase recycling because they will be forced to recycle. (That ignores how many calls come in for extra pick-ups per day). Sarantou wanted the list of communities that have a similar program as to what we are using so he could call them. He wanted to know how much recycling is coming in and he wanted to know how much they’d save in interest on the carts. He asked about the incentive program, Welch said they could not afford that at this point. Sarantou also wanted a report on where they are with coordinating with the County on recycling collection.

Waniewski said they need to compare apples to apples, do we really want the city to be involved in handing out coupons if it costs over $400,000? If they put that into a marketing program he thinks that’s a better use of the money. He’s going to propose an ordinance that has a sunshine clause, it was his understanding the whole trash fee was a temporary situation and now they are all lining up to get back their pensions, they are all lining up to get their raises and the rest of us are watching our trash fees go up. Ludeman said he’s always been amazed that we don’t have recycling in this building the way we expect residents to do.

Amend TMC Ch. 1905 to restore tax credit to 100%, retroactive to April 1

Herwat said there were many major employers who did not put the tax into effect and anyone who did have the additional tax taken out would have that money credited, so the City did not collect that much during the duration of the 25% elimination of the tax credit.

Approve new TARTA funding at the Nov 2 general election, from 2.5 mill property tax to 1/2% sales tax

The administration would like Council to support this, Herwat understands a committee hearing will be held on this. Waniewski said this will be held on June 1. He said this looks to be administrative as far as getting on the TARTA bandwagon. Webb wanted to know why this was necessary before the voters spoke. Keith Wilkowski said every TARTA community must first consent to place it before the voters before it can go on the ballot. This is to approve the process not approve the change. All nine members of TARTA are considering similar legislation, and all of them must approve before it can be placed on the ballot. Steel wanted to know the deadline, Hertwat said it was June 30th. Ludeman wanted to know on a 100,000 home what the reduction would be, how long would the transition period be and would there be any increase in rider fees.