This page from a Chiefland newspaper carried the only Levy County Commission advertisement advising people that a public hearing would take place on Oct. 8 to change landfill rates and regulations regarding free household garbage dumping. Can you spot the county’s legal ad for the landfill resolution by scanning the page? The county made no further efforts to notify the public of the changes. This legal advertisement didn’t include the 13-page resolution commissioners would adopt in less than two weeks. The full resolution was never published before the hearing.
By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
Levy County Commissioners and their staff provided almost no advance notice to the public of their plans in October to revise landfill rules and regulations governing the free dumping of household garbage.
The first time members of the public knew the contents of Resolution 2019-83 was during at an Oct. 8 Levy County Commission meeting when the board held a public hearing and adopted the rule changes.
Until then, the rule changes were known only to commissioners and their staff and the county attorney.
The only warning of the impending changes was published on page 3B of the Sept. 26 edition of a Chiefland newspaper in the typical format of a legal advertisement, which is tiny print with only a scrimpy summary of what the resolution would say.
The legal ad was eight inches long and a column wide and buried in a sea of gray ink below a puzzle. The advertisement no doubt met the minimum legal requirements to hold a public hearing, but it provided few clues about the contents of the 13-page resolution the county commission was planning to adopt in less than two weeks.
County commission staff would normally have emailed the contents of the resolution to members of the news media and any resident requesting a copy of the agenda. The resolution should have been included in the agenda’s support documents, but staff said they accidentally left the 13-page resolution out of the support documents.
Technical Glitch
Staff said a technical glitch resulted in the resolution being left out of the support documents. The 13-page resolution and its contents remained a secret until the Commission Chairman John Meeks opened the public hearing on Oct. 8 and asked Landfill Administrative Director Rod Hastings to explain the contents of the resolution. The resolution was adopted 4-1 with Commissioner Lilly Rooks opposed. Meeks and his cousin, Commissioner Rock Meeks, along with Commissioner Mike Joyner and Matt Brooks voted to approve the resolution.
The agenda itself, which was emailed out to the media and others before the meeting mentioned in sketchy terms that the board was being asked by staff to “adopt a schedule of rates, fees and charges for solid waste disposal” and repeal a previous resolution. It said nothing more.
In the past, commissioners published their agenda and support documents on the county commission website but the website is no longer used for that purpose. After being sued because the website violated the Americans with Disabilities Act for sight impaired people, the board stopped publishing the agenda and support documents on its website more than a year ago. The county says staff is working to get the website back on track, but it could take some time.
No Board Discussion
The landfill resolution could have been discussed in advance of the Oct. 8 meeting, but it was never mentioned in a board meeting prior to the public hearing. The issue was handled by Hastings communicating his thoughts to County Attorney Anne Bast Brown behind the scenes. She wrote the resolution and brought it to the board for approval. The resolution and the changes to landfill regulations weren’t mentioned during the budget process between May and September. The behind-the-scenes communications regarding the resolution weren’t known to the public.
The lack of public discussion in board meetings and budget workshops about the issues that Hastings was discussing with Brown leading up to adoption of the resolution kept the public in the dark for the most part. The tiny legal ad in one newspaper was like a match being lit in the middle of a football stadium at night. Some people no doubt saw the advertisement by reading the fine print in the legal ads of one Chiefland newspaper, but the 13 pages of rules, regulations and definitions in the resolution weren’t included in the tiny ad. The public had no idea what was coming.
Meeks Responds
County Commission Chairman John Meeks acknowledged there wasn’t much advance notice of the landfill resolution before the Oct. 8 public hearing at a county commission meeting, but he said the resolution changed nothing for the average citizen. Residents can still dump eight bags of household garbage at the landfill at no charge.
“I can admit that (little advance notice), but doing my homework, nothing for the average citizen of Levy County changed. The only thing that changed is we have a planned copy of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable so that we have enforcement against people who are abusing the system. That is the key take away for me. I said if someone shows up with 9 bags, not a problem. If someone shows up with the back of their pickup full of garbage, not a problem; it’s the individual who shows up every day with a dump trailer full of garbage or a high-sided-truck full of garbage where they are picking up garbage for someone else and brings it in and they’re not licensed – they can’t prove the garbage is residential and they’re dumping it for free. That is what we had to address, the abuses. The guy who brought in 30 TVs one day; now if he shows up again, we say you can bring in two TVs; the other 28 you’re going to have to pay,” Meeks said.
Meeks was asked how long Hastings had been communicating with the county attorney about problems with abuses of free dumping at the landfill and why it wasn’t mentioned in budget workshops and hearings for nearly five months. It was only mentioned after the budget process ended.
“It doesn’t affect the budget; it doesn’t increase the ($116) landfill assessment. We didn’t lower the assessment. Again this is just an enforcement tool to have something to take care of the abuse, in addition to having clear language of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable at the landfill transfer station,” Meeks said. “As an example and I’m not saying Waste Pro would do this: don’t take it that way. But if we didn’t have rules, Waste Pro would be showing up on its Cedar Key run at our satellite station saying we want to dump it here so we don’t have to drive all the way to Bronson and drive all the way back to get that second load. So we had to spell out specifically what would be acceptable at the transfer station.”
Responding to the question of how long Hastings had been discussing the landfill problems with the county attorney before Brown wrote the resolution, Meeks said he thinks the discussions started the previous November and December.
“I said we’re going to ride it out. Let’s see how soon the uptick in garbage goes away. Conventional wisdom was that everyone was going to take advantage of the program. They’re going to clean up around their house. All those things they’ve been putting off, we’d see a spike in the beginning and it’s going to level off,” Meeks said. “The problem, for the average citizen it has waned off, but that number has ballooned by people taking advantage of the system. That is what has not allowed the number to drop off in a normal everyday environment. People only have so much trash to haul off. People aren’t going to make trash to haul to the dump.”
Meeks asked about staff comments indicating that a lot of the additional garbage was coming from the Alachua and Archer areas.
“I don’t know. There was some discussion about that. Another issue is sometimes you have garbage that comes from Dunnellon and garbage that comes from Trenton. There are people who have those addresses that are within Levy County. It’s hard to police that. They can use the property appraiser’s website, Google maps, any manner of electronic device mapping to figure out where an address is,” Meeks said.
Meeks was asked to specifically address comments by County Coordinator Wilbur Dean indicating a lot of the garbage was coming from Archer and Alachua County addresses.
“That’s what Benny said, but people who live in my neighborhood take their garbage to the Alachua County Landfill because they can dump in there for free, even though they live in Levy County. They abuse the system. I don’t do that. I tell them why would you do that when you can dump at our landfill for free. (They say) It’s more convenient, it’s on the way to Gainesville, I can do it on the way to work, I can dump the trash off and nobody checks me. I don’t operate that way,” Meeks said. “If there was a mistake made by the board, it was that I had a distaste for wanting to charge people an assessment and not receive anything for it. If you pay the fire assessment, those people are there. You can go to the ambulance station and get a Band-aid. If the ambulance comes to your house and sometone thinks you’re hurt, and they come and say you’re fine, no bill; the only time you get billed is if you’re transported. If the fire department comes to your house and puts out a fire or puts out a fire in the woods by your house, there’s no charge. The mindset with the board is if we’re going to make people pay the assessment, they should not have to pay the assessment and still pay at the dump. If we had to do it over again, maybe that’s not the way to go; maybe it should be a $50 assessment and people don’t have to pay. I just don’t like charging people for something and not getting anything in return.”
Part I: Landfill Rule Changes Weren’t in Full View until Last Minute ; Board of County Commission Posted November 3, 2019
