Increasing: Trash PIckup Fees or Sour Grapes?

Let's build Anderson, I am not on the City Council so my opinion is pretty mute here.  Personally, I don't like paying $10 extra, especally for the service we currently have...however...if given the choice I would rather pay that $10 and maintain the same police fire protection we currently have, have the parks mowed the streets maintained (yes the wheel tax goes to the roads/streets but the county gets alot of it and they really need it, also, honestly Anderson streets need alot of help too).

 In some situations I am in favor of privatization, however...in light of the recent issues with IBM and the Family Social Services issues I think that it must be approached very cautiously.

Toby,

Your a tax payer and a citizen of this community and an elected official. You saying you opinion is mute WOW that speaks volumes to me of what you think us tax payers can say and do. NO ONE HAS A MUTE OPINION! TO SILENCE THE PEOPLE IS TO SILENCE THE GOVERNMENT AS WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT!

So you believe the only places we have to cut is police fire and parks?

And you believe that there is no room for cuts in police or fire?

What about no raises for ANY city employee? Open the union contracts and tell them either they freeze the wage increases or we lay off. How about that? I mean most private companies have either frozen or lowered wages, so why should they be any different?

     OK, this is my take on this. I am young, so i dont fully understand all these things... I am also irritated right now, so please excuse me... However, if they vote that in, and my bill rises as it just did last month, and if i cant afford to pay it, as i am already cutting it close, My electricity gets shut off. then im left with no water, no lights, nothing. Then i have to use money that is budgeted in to buy food for my family to pay this ever increasing bill. I may sound selfish, but i read that if they dont do this, people might get laid off, HELLO!!!! Should i care if someone gets laid off when i cant pay my bill? I would rather they take money from the parks maintanence then to take money from my pockets... to some $10.75 isnt much, but to some its ALOT. i just read about this for the first time today, and i hadnt heard a thing about the sewer increase until it showed up on my bill. These things need more publicity, they should have handed these fliers out during the parade over the past weekend!

 Another thing, why did they just buy all these special trash cans and recycle bins if we couldnt afford it??? Wasnt a darn thing wrong with the trash cans i already had...:)

PH: As others have alluded to, government has pretty much become used to spending what they don't have, and taking what they need to cover the bills from each one of us. The problem is that now each one of us are either in crises over job losses, or fearful we are going to be in the near future. And while we adjust our lives accordingly, to many of us the perception of our local and city government is that they are conducting themselves as if there isn't a problem; expecting us to foot the bill for their inability to adjust to the current situation.

I agree.  While we adjust to our new economic realities, THEY look for new revenue streams.  Where are the headwaters for these streams? Where do they ultimately come from? Yup.  YOU.  Through taxes of one kind or another.

PH:For many within this city "crises" is not a sufficient word to describe what has transpired within their lives over the past year; disaster comes a little closer. Loss of income, loss of home, loss of the ability to provide for themselves and their family; coupled with declining options surrounding getting the help they need to survive, for some the situation becomes unbelievable. Is 11 bucks a month going to break any of us posting on this site? Probably not, but the reality is that the same 11 bucks may mean the difference between getting to work in Indianapolis, or eating for a growing segment within our city. And for some of us this situation may become our very own lives in the coming months. 

I know some for whom the difference is being able to buy just a couple of their life-saving prescription pills at a time.  Not even a whole Rx full...just a tablet or two.  Or else perhaps they can put a little food on the table.  So what's the best medical advice for, say, a diabetic elder who must choose between insulin or food or paying a trash bill?

PH:Take a walk outside and look at your neighborhood. How many for sale signs or foreclosure signs do you see? How many homes stand empty? I don't have to tell you this, but it sure seems to me like our elected officials haven't seen a single one yet, and if they have they are more interested in tearing the existing home down than adjusting their budgets to allow them to operate within their new means. Pretty simple math really, empty homes = shrinking revenue streams = shrinking budgets.

Muncie is already making the hard choices, cutting headcount, cutting service levels, and doing everything they can to adjust as quickly as possible to their rapidly declining revenue streams. It just appears to me as if the City of Anderson and its leadership want to try to ignore it, thinking if they do so long enough it will just go away. The reality is, if they ignore it long enough there won't be anyone left.

Muncie is making the hard choices and Mayor MaShurley is driving that, but not without threats from city employees turned thugs and vandals.  Obviously those employees don't really care how the ordinary citizen gets squeezed. It isn't over yet, unfortunately. And we think Anderson is bad...

 http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200990702022

http://www.thestarpress.com/article/20090708/NEWS01/907080315/1002/Mom-who-left-bizarre-phone-call-tells-her-story  

PH: With this situation I wonder if they've considered placing centralized trash collection sites in strategic areas of the community, and having folks haul their own trash to them? Or perhaps reducing collection to bi-weekly, with an option for weekly trash collection in exchange for this magical fee? Or if they've actually considered anything else besides raping those of us left in this city?

The reality is most city business appears to be conducted under the table and out of earshot of those whom it impacts the most. They seem to like it that way too!

PH: With this situation I wonder if they've considered placing centralized trash collection sites in strategic areas of the community, and having folks haul their own trash to them? Or perhaps reducing collection to bi-weekly, with an option for weekly trash collection in exchange for this magical fee? Or if they've actually considered anything else besides raping those of us left in this city?

This is some of the ideas I was talking about....

Let'sRebuildAnderson, I guess that I meant that my opinion didn't matter in an "official" way...I don't personally have a vote in this. 

As I understand the city unions have agreed to a wage freeze already. 

Talk about not wanting to lay off employees has less to do with concern for their individual welfare and more to do with the fact that that person is assigned a job to do, and if they aren't doing it, who will?  Some jobs can be done by another pretty easily I'm sure, others not so much.  I also know that some departments are already cut down to the bare minimum.  The street department employed over 30 people in the 90's...now there is half that.  They still have the same number of roads to maintain, trees to trim, sidewalks to replace, streets to clean, medians to mow, etc.  With half the manpower obviously the guys are working harder and still not able to do what they used to do.  Yes, for now we are getting by, but when the streets are neglected for some time...you know what happens.

I don't believe that the city bought the new trashcans, I believe that Best Way bought them to go with their new trash trucks so that they don't have to pay guys to get out and get the trash. 

I'm not saying that there is no waste in the City budget, there probably is.  Is it enough to make up this fee?  I don't know.  I do know for positive that what the Herald Bulletin reports isn't the whole truth and we cannot take it as so.  Sometimes it isn't even any part of the truth.  I can't say "Cut employees at the utility office", I would need to see how many they have, how many they had in the past, how many are needed to get the job done...

I'm just saying, if you are frusterated by this, call your councilman up (or email) and say "I don't like this, I don't want it to pass, how are you planning to vote and why...." then let the conversation go from there.  If at the end, you are still opposed and they are still voting for, at least you will know why and can make a real decision on your future vote.  No matter what happens, posting about it on a forum such as this will do little to change anything.

Well I disagree that it will do little to change things by posting here.  Look how many people that didnt know about it now do!  Lets say 10 people found out about it here.  And they each told 10 people that is 100 people and they told 10 people that is 1000 people and most city elections are won by less than 1000 votes....  seems like a difference maker to me!

The problem with elected officials and bureaucrats is they lose their touch with reality. CUTS become reductions in growth. Dealing with reduced income usually involves taking more money from taxpayers. When times improve, increased revenues are always spent and the taxes stay. (food beverage tax for yet unbuilt convention center.)

Let’s Rebuild Anderson, I sure hope that you are correct.  You analysis will hold true if people DO take some action.  Unfortunately, the general modus operandi of the normal forum poster is to TALK here, lay low at home.  The anonymity of the internet allows us all to be bolder, stronger and even nastier than we would otherwise be, from the comfort of our own surroundings without the fear of very many people knowing who or where we are.  You sir, (like me) are an idealist.  I hope that however this issue is resolved, people DO take a stand whatever their sentiments are.

NOTE; Once again, sorry about the formatting here. It was formatted correctly I swear, but for some reason will not accept it here. I've tried three times now to edit it and cannot get it to save the changes. . .  

I don’t believe there is anyone here that really believes a single word the Herald Bulletin puts out there. In fact, I also believe that is one of the drivers behind the very existence of this forum, and a key reason that membership within this forum has been maintained by at least a portion of the individuals here. 

The HB continues to struggle professionally and financially, and I for one rarely read the thing. Is it due to their less than stellar reporting practices, or are they a victim of the internet? A little of both I would say.

...I'm back after my latest hiatus!

I contacted my council representative on Monday where this issue is concerned.  All I got for my effort was a dull stare and basically a non-commital grunt.

In reading carefully (and having a one-sided discussion with my non-responsive councilman), I learned that the reasoning for this tax has nothing to do with trash, but everything to do with feathering the general fund - monies are going to meet payroll, etc.

If it was for trash pickup, a reasonable response would be to let the current contract out for bid.  This did not and (historically) will not happen.  Our Council and Mayor need to adjust their expectations to the shrinking economy which they've inherited and quit the foolish spending and cut payroll and cut wages at all levels!

We are being fed the Orwellian "Doublespeak" so wonderfully explained in the book "1984" if we believe "trash" is the reason for this latest "fee."