Constituents tell council no to municipal trash collection

The Red Oak City Council and members of the Red Oak community once again discussed the contested issue of municipal garbage pick up at the Feb. 3 regular meeting.
Discussion began with city administrator Lisa Kotter addressing comments that have been posted on social media regarding the proposed plan. Kotter said a planned meeting between the City of Red Oak, Batten Sanitation, and Town and Country Sanitation was scheduled for last week. Kotter said the number one thing that she heard from people was that the city should just enforce the code that it has or tweak the code.
“We do have a full time nuisance officer, but as we look at the tools that we have in the city to be able to help people clean up the nuisance properties, those that have regular trash. Right now, our code says that people have 30 days to accumulate garbage. I’ve heard people want that to be seven days. In conversation with our city attorney, we think that that if we chose to change it, which is not a bad idea, that we would probably not go down to seven days, we would probably go at 14 days because if there was ever a missed pickup, you’re now beyond seven days and you would too easily be out of compliance,” advised Kotter.
If the days were reduced to 14, per the city attorney, Kotter said the city would have to prove the garbage has been sitting for 14 days.
“At any point that we see the garbage, our nuisance officer has a camera and it’s stamped with a date and a time. We have to prove before we’re going be able to write a citation that it’s not your seven day old garbage that we’re citing you for. We’ll take a second picture on day 14 and there starts where if we change the code, it would become a nuisance. At that point, we would then have that documentation and we would get into the point where we would now get into nuisance abatement and send them a letter, which is not a timely process. We have to wait for them to get it. And we’re likely going to say that they have seven days to clean it up. Sometimes people comply. If you cleaned it up, mission accomplished, we move along. If you have not done that yet, then we have to write you a citation and a municipal citation,” advised Kotter. “We have to pay $95 in court at the cost of the taxpayers to submit that to the court. Then we have to get our attorney involved. Once you get that citation, the court will then issue a preliminary hearing date, where we’re just getting together and you enter your plea. Now before we even get to court with our nuisance officer and our city attorney, we will have had another three weeks passed. At that point, the violator may say, you know what, I don’t want to have a municipal infraction, so I’m going to clean it up. But again, our experience has been that most people that get to that point are not confined. Most of them don’t even show up in court. If they plead not guilty, the next thing is, is that we have to schedule a hearing. The hearings in the court system today are about 30 more days out. So we’re now waiting another month from all the month and a half that we’ve already done. If they hire a lawyer, the lawyers are probably going to start talking and we are not going to have a 30 day hearing, they may have to postpone and have conversations. In our most recent case that we had, when we got to court, the person did not show up. We said at the time of the hearing, that if the person ended up with another two more weeks past the hearing day, they would have a citation of $250. If they didn’t take that action within two weeks, their citation would go up to $750. That is our only way of recouping the cost of the legal process with which we have just gone through. So all of us as taxpayers pay those fees, and those are not recouped regardless of what the legal fees are.”
Kotter said all of those are things, from a fiscal responsibility standpoint, that the council has to balance.
“We are trying to work in balancing all the things that we do as city leaders and to be able to listen to you and still lead the city in the way that the council deems necessary. What we’re proposing is a pass through and is no cost to you, to the taxpayers in general. You’re basically paying the provider through us. In the last quarterly report that our nuisance officer gave, of all the nuisances that he has cited, 58 were for trash and four of them were in court. I just wanted you to be aware because we hear that people are saying we don’t have a problem, but we clearly have a problem,” commented Kotter.
The council then heard public comments. Elaine Hollen addressed the council first. While thanking the council for its service, she spoke against plans for municipal garbage collection.
“The visual appearance of our community is way more encompassing than weekly trash and trash cans. Personal properties such as homes needing paint and general upkeep are much more of an eyesore than our trash has ever been. It states when you propose curbside garbage the reason another vendor would be hired is if the two haulers being given priority do not come to the table to negotiate the terms with the city and/or the council determines the price and service being offered is not acceptable. This is their individual business. We, the people, are not upset with their prices or services. My question is, are you negotiating? I don’t know if I were a hauler if I would have met with you either, as it seems like it’s a let’s make a deal reality TV show rather than negotiating,” Hollen said. “It sounds mandated and if they don’t agree to cut their cost and give the city what they want, they will go to someone else located out of Montgomery County. You state you have fiscal responsibility to the rental residents. Well, in my opinion, this is a violation of my personal rights. The fiscal responsibility you have is to manage the city’s budget, not to individual local businesses. Why are you putting the burden on the local haulers to make the price cheaper? Why put more demands on them to purchase a portion of the toters and potential coder dumpers for their trucks when the homeowners are already happy with their service from these two companies? This almost sounds like bullying at its best. Speaking for small business owners, we don’t need the local government getting involved in the trash business.”
Hollen added if the city had already received a trash quote from someone else besides Batten and Town and Country, it needed to make sure it’s comparing apples to apples.
“Go ahead and mandate trash removal. Allow the garbage haulers to handle the customers that they have, and they can alternate who has the new customers. Allow the nuisance officers or police to write tickets. Mandatory removal, as you were proposing, will not force those people to move trash from their porch or garage to a toter on the curb. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. Let’s work together. Volunteers to help clean up properties, get Habitat for Humanity involved to help paint or clean up. Community service for prisoners or others needing time to pay back to our community. When taking a walk, take garbage bags with you and pick up the garbage. We have doggy bags on the trail sites. What about supplying bags to pick up and along with garbage? We will all succeed if we take a different approach and work together,” Hollen explained.
Martha Bopp then addressed the council, saying she had organized an impromptu petition regarding the subject of municipal garbage collection.
“ I went to the hospital lunchroom, the YMCA, the library and people signed this. There were 47. Every single person who signed this piece of paper has given me permission to give this to the city council. So that Mr. Bills and who only heard from four people, you all can go through. That’s what those are your words. You guys need to talk to us,” Bopp said.
John Gross also addressed the council with another petition that included 817 participants that were against the garbage proposal.
“They are all citizens in Red Oak. That proves nobody wants this. Most of those people that have been talked to personally have agreed. We would love to go with Batten and Town and Country. And if they want to raise their price $2 or $3 on everybody for them to pay for big dumpsters in this town twice a year to do a citywide cleanup, they wouldn’t have a problem with that. If you put it on our water bill, there’s no stopping what can be charged later on. That’s government,” Gross commented.
Former Red Oak City Councilperson Jeanice Lester addressed the council and spoke on the proposal.
“After sitting on the council for 12 years, it is not an easy position at all. Unless you have sat in their seats, you have no idea. Yes, they are elected, but people are quick to criticize them for carrying out and try to do what is best for the community. Social media can at times be an easy way to attack people, businesses, et cetera, without knowing all the facts. I challenge you to listen to both sides before you blast the waves. I will tell you now, I may not agree with you, but I certainly will not take my thoughts and words to social media,” Lester stated. I would hope you would have the same respect.”
Lester said there were two sides to the issue, and one may be louder than the other, but it didn’t include the whole.
“As I reached out to the city council people, I stated that I have learned over the years that the vocal group is often the opposition group. I have learned over the years from school bond issues, council items, whatever there is out there. Often the majority is silent and I cannot blame them for being silent. That being said, I would like to see some kind of mandatory curbside trash pickup. Take a drive around town. Open your eyes and look. I wish we were also involving curbside recycling. Red Oak needs to move forward and not get stuck on comments like ‘it has always been this way,’ ‘it works just fine,’ or similar thoughts. Progress is sometimes painful, but in the long run it can be rewarding. I hope the city can work with our two current larger trash haulers if they move forward, but some of that depends on them,” Lester explained. “Being involved with many projects, I have always believed sometimes you have to spend money to make money. That would be my challenge to them. For the record, I’ve seen a lot of people saying we have other things we need to do with funds. All funds are not transferable to other things. Example, just because one fund may have a lot of money, you don’t have a legal right to spend it on something that you think we should. Budgets are a complex thing. I wish everybody luck and I know it’ll be a good decision and thought well through.”
Anne Stewart also issued comments to the council and said she was not in favor of the program.
“I understand where it comes from, but we’re talking about something that’s going to impact 30 percent of Red Oak. More than a quarter. You’re talking about adding a bill that they don’t have right now. I understand that. $26 might not seem like a lot. To some people, but to some, that might be the reason they decide not to. Because they’re already struggling.  I think we would be better served into working to programs that would help these people. I’ve heard about doing this twice a year collecting trash and junk curbside. That is something that I think a lot of people would be in support of. I know there are lots of different organizations that we could reach out to, that would probably be in favor of helping these people,” advised Stewart.
Kyle Cross also addressed the council speaking against the idea to proceed with the proposal.
“Why not leave the nuisance at it at a seven day? That way, if it’s at seven days, the nuisance officer sees it, puts a sticky note on the door of the offending person, giving them seven days to get it picked up. There’s the 14 days. The first time they get a warning. Second time, don’t give them a hundred dollar ticket. Instead of giving them a citation, can’t they be written a ticket to be charged for this? No court fees, no court, same as a traffic ticket. I don’t know if the code enforcement officer has the authority to write tickets. If not, maybe give him the authority to write tickets or have a police officer write them,” Cross said.
Bill Wombacher addressed the council to talk about the comprehensive plan. Wombacher said according to surveys, of the top five priorities, garbage collection ended up dead last.
“A few people thought it was number one, but most people did not place it as a top issue. A total of 15 homes were looked at. This information says there are 2,400 homes in town. That is 0.62%. I would not agree that addressing an issue that affects that low of the population is the right time to municipalize something that clearly most of the population does not want me in this place. I can tell you myself, I don’t want those garbage cans on my property,” Wombacher commented.
Kotter commented that the city recognized and understand all of the people that signed the petition are in disagreement. Kotter said with additional information, the subject would be brought to the council for a vote.
Councilperson John Haidsiak said he had received a number of calls against the proposal and suggested the issue be put forth on a public referendum. Councilpersons Brian Bills and  Sharon Bradley said they had heard positive and negative comments, and in Bradley’s case, more were negative than positive.
Councilperson Tim Fridoph advised the crowd they were doing their best, and in the end, the council members are all neighbors.
“We’re still part of your community. We’re volunteers that help with the events that you and your families are enjoying, so maybe don’t try to vilify us too much, because we know our city. No matter if it’s something that you disagree with or you agree with, we’re here to do our best. And I hope that regardless of what happens after this, we can still meet on the street, shake hands and be cordial one to another, because really, in the world we live in now, we need a little bit more civility and dignity to treat each other with respect. I thank everyone for what they had to say. I appreciate that Jeanice was willing  to come forward in a group of people that are opposed to something and say that she supports it. That does take a lot of bravery, because it’s very easy to sit behind a keyboard or some other Facebook page to voice your opinion and not step out of the shadows and speak your piece. I think that’s probably why a lot of people don’t speak their support of this, because they don’t want to be vilified. They don’t want to start an argument with their friend, with their neighbor, with their coworker, with their local merchant that they go to buy their things at. And so I think just a little bit of grace goes a long way, and that’s my opinion on it,” explained Fridolph.
No further action was taken by the council. The city has posted a fact sheet about their proposed plans at cms3.revize.com/revize/redoakia/Garbage Pro/Reasons to Have Weekly Garbage 25-merged.pdf.