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
County Commission Chairman John Meeks said the board often makes tough decisions that affect everyone in the county, but he doesn’t regard the decision in October to adopt a resolution limiting the number of household bags of garbage that can be dumped at the landfill as a major one.
Meeks was asked if he had to do it over again, should there have been more advance public notice about a landfill resolution of this magnitude that was approved at the Board’s Oct. 8 hearing, and would he do anything differently to give the public more notice in advance if they wanted to attend and comment.
The resolution limiting the number of bags of household garbage to 9 that could be dumped at the landfill on any day, rather than unlimited dumping, passed 4-1 with Commissioner Lilly Rooks opposed. She felt the board was going back on its word to allow free dumping of household garbage.
“I don’t see where it’s a resolution that’s a major one. It’s not like we said we’re taking the dumping away. We just put in a black and white document that said this is what we’re going to go by. If you’re a little over we’re not going to punish you, but if you’re abusing the system…I don’t know how many are out there now but a couple of weeks ago you could go out there and sit for an hour or two and you would see two or three people coming through that you could tell were dumping a lot of garbage. They weren’t just being neighborly. They were outfitted to pick up garbage and haul it. We had to do something about that and we had to do something before we had the satellite stations. It cost us enough to haul it to New River (landfill in Union County), but could you imagine if we had these people abusing the system also dumping at satellite stations and have haul it from there to Bronson and haul it away again.”
Meeks added, “You feel that things changed dramatically. I don’t see where things changed dramatically. I think some definitions were cleaned-up, some things were made clear about what was an acceptable amount of garbage per day. Now again, we’re not talking about average citizens, but to stop the people who are abusing it; a month from now, if people are coming to the meetings and complaining that they brought bags and were charged for one, we’ll go back and say this ain’t working, we got to fix it again. Government always has to be open to making changes. If you are doing something and it ain’t working, then change it. You can’t just say that’s the rule, that’s what we’re doing to do forever and ever.”
Drafting Resolutions Prior to Board Discussions
Regarding the issue of the landfill resolution being prepared by staff and brought to a public hearing before the public knew its contents, Meeks said it is common practice for staff to bring resolutions forward for board approval without the board actually discussing the issues and asking for a resolution. He said the landfill resolution was simply addressing the abuses of a year-old policy allowing free dumping of household garbage. He said the resolution created rules and regulations designed to curb the abuses, not to impact law abiding residents.
Meeks cited other resolutions adopted at the Oct. 8 and Oct. 22 board meetings as examples of how the board doesn’t always talk about resolutions in advance of staff writing the documents. Resolution 2019-061 was adopted at the Oct. 8 meeting to petition for the abandonment of Andrews Avenue in Fanning Springs. Resolution 2019-081 was adopted to move forward with a state-funded grant agreement to resurface and widen County Road 347 from U.S. 19 to U.S. 27A. Meeks places those resolutions in the same class as the landfill resolution.
Meeks was told by Spotlight that County Coordinator Wilbur Dean indicated in his interview that the county would be closely watching free residential garbage dumping at the landfill for the next few months and if changes were needed the county would begin discussions in March to address whatever issues surfaced.
Changes Needed?
“There may very well need to be some changes made. We may change our formula on how we do this and look at going a different way. We know Emergency Medical Services is going to need more money; where is that money coming from. If we don’t have to give the sheriff a ton of money next year, we may be able to give some tax relief. That’s been a killer. The last two years, whenever we think we’re going to have a surplus of money the sheriff shows up and needs all and then some,” Meeks said.
Spotlight noted that the price charged by commercial waste haulers in cities and rural areas hasn’t gone down much since the county implemented free residential dumping. Commercial haulers also dump residential garbage free of charge. Spotlight asked Meeks if there was any possibility that commercial haulers could be required to begin charging tipping fees for residential garbage once again since their rates haven’t gone down that much. Would the county consider requiring commercial haulers to pay tipping fees for dumping residential garbage?
“That is something I’m considering moving forward and again these aren’t willy-nilly decisions that are made. There are studies, and you have to have data to back up the rate, but that’s something I want to look at; maybe going back to dual; we have an assessment, but we have tipping fees, but there’s still an allowance for 2 (free) bags of garbage a day or 4 bags, so people are still getting something, but they’re not getting hit so hard with the $116,” Meeks said. “But I don’t know how that goes with making them (commercial haulers) pay for garbage there should be no charge for; that’s a part of the resolution, household garbage, no charge for it. It doesn’t matter how it’s brought to the dump, as long as its brought by a reputable business, that is the licensing that makes it okay,” Meeks said.
“I’m thinking about going to a lower assessment and bringing back tipping fees, maybe making the tipping fees for residential less than for commercial. The dumping issue – illegal dumping – has improved,” Meeks added.
Spotlight noted that people in cities and rural areas are continuing to pay for residential garbage pickup even though residential dumping is supposed to be free. They pay commercial haulers to pick up their garbage and the haulers dump the garbage free at the landfill. Perhaps the county’s attorneys can look at that issue as well, because people are still paying for residential garbage dumping if a commercial hauler picks up their household garbage.
“But they’re paying for the overhead, the insurance, the truck, that’s what the fee is going for, for tipping fees,” he said.
“But it’s still residential garbage,” Spotlight responded.
Are Cities Lowering Charges?
“But you if live in the city of Chiefland, and if you choose to take your garbage to the dump, you wouldn’t pay to have it dumped. You would dump it for free,” Meeks said. “The city is going to charge you for garbage service whether you take one bag or 20 bags. If you really wanted to point fingers and say who is really wrong, is it the city that’s charging the residents to have their garbage hauled away? Aren’t they the ones that are taking something from the system? I know it’s the way we’ve always done it. One of the advantages of living in towns is you have city water, city sewer and in some cases garbage removal, but I didn’t see any cities lowering their waste rates. All the cities make money. There’s a little cushion in there. If the hauler is charging $12 per house, the city is at $20 or whatever; but I didn’t see any cities step up to the plate and say hey, we’re not collecting any money off this, because they need the revenue.”
But Spotlight noted that people are still paying for residential garbage pickup even though they are paying the $116 landfill assessment. Shouldn’t that be looked at?
Satellite Stations
“I’m always open to new ideas. I hope as we get these satellite stations open they won’t have to pay. They won’t need to pay the hauler, not that I want to put anybody out of business; some people are still going to be lazy and pay someone to haul their garbage away,” Meeks said.
Meeks said the satellite station located on County Road 347 between Shell Mound and Fowlers Bluff has opened and the county is moving toward developing a second satellite station in Camp Azalea near Manatee Springs State Park. He said there is a small legal issue with the satellite station site near Inglis, but if the issue can’t be resolved the county will look elsewhere.
But Spotlight pointed out that Dean said the county was going to observe the operation of the satellite station on CR 347 for several months to determine if the rules of operation need to be tweaked before they open the second site.
“Rod (Hastings) told me they were going to start getting things going at the one in Camp Azalea. I’m not going to say we’re going to build fence or pave the driveway, but they’re going to go down there, clear the lot whatever, start the permitting process; you need a Department of Environmental Protection permit to do all this. He didn’t go into details. I said well, I’d like to bring it back to the board to see if that’s truly the next location or do we want to go to Inglis. He said he talked to Wilbur and there’s a problem. I would like to have it up and operating just to see what it’s going to cost us before we are committed to 3, 4 or 5 (satellite stations). Again, we’ve made a commitment to do it and no matter what happens in the future, these satellite stations will always be open. If the board in the future decides it wants to go to mandatory pickup, we will have these locations that people can bring stuff that isn’t allowed in mandatory pickup or they could be recycling centers, whatever. It’s not a waste of money and I am certainly not advocating for mandatory pickup. That’s a bitter pill to swallow too. As we grow and as things change you know, you got to grow with it. If you say, well, we’re just going to do it the same we always did; we would still have 5 municipal dumps. Every town would have a dump. We wouldn’t have a (landfill) transfer station and we wouldn’t have satellites. We wouldn’t have some of these problems.”
Spotlight asked Meeks if he agreed the satellite stations should be opened sooner than later.
“Oh yeah, I hope they’re all open by next spring. I don’t know if that is do-able,” he said. “I can’t say that maybe Wilbur knows something I don’t, but I don’t know why, now that we got one operation, we would have to wait.”
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Part II: Landfill Resolution Rule Changes – Board of County Commission; Posted November 3, 2019
