CITY COUNCIL RATIFIES $1.64 TRASH FEE HIKE

It was a case of deja vu Monday as a split Cape Girardeau City Council gave final approval to a $1.64 per month trash-fee hike.

Council members David Limbaugh, Al Spradling III, Mary Wulfers and Melvin Kasten voted for the increase.

But Mayor Gene Rhodes and Councilmen Doug Richards and Melvin Gateley asked that the fee be delayed until after a citizens task force could further study solid waste and recycling issues.

The same split council gave initial approval to the measure June 1, and as at that meeting, a number of residents appeared Monday in opposition to the fee hike.

The majority of the council has said current cost increases associated with state and federal mandates make the fee increase necessary, without which the city would be forced to operate the service at a deficit.

With adoption of the city budget, trash fees will increase from $8.90 per month to $10.54.

But Lynnette Berry of 822 Pheasant Cove, who also appeared before the council earlier this month, said a fee increase will not solve the city's solid waste problems.

Other citizens urged city officials to join with residents and attempt to devise alternative ways to deal with solid waste and recycling issues.

"The sanitation department should be treated like a business," said Berry. "It has to be a separate business that can function on its own.

"The city needs to ask itself how it can make this business work without decreasing service to people. You're not going to do it by raising fees because you're going to run people off."

Berry urged the council to reduce weekly recycling collection and restore twice weekly trash collection. "As far as I'm concerned, my fee was raised 50 percent when you cut my service last fall and cut my pickup to once a week," she added.

Richards asked that the city consider reducing recycling collections to once or twice monthly, and pass the cost savings from the reduction in service to residents.

"The thing I hear most in the community is that we do not need once a week recycling pickup," he said. "If we could reduce by half our pickup costs, could we potentially save enough to make up our deficit and possibly pass it on in savings to our citizens?"

But Assistant City Manager Al Stoverink said it's unlikely reducing recycling collections would save much at all in operating costs.

Stoverink said that because more people would bring materials directly to the recycling center and the materials would be more concentrated on collection days, additional personnel and "overhead" costs at the center probably would offset most cost savings.

After several residents objected to the fee proposal, Ed Schmalzried, a representative of BFI Inc., asked the city to bid out the residential trash service. BFI, a private trash hauler, has repeatedly asked the city to bid the service.

"I first appeared before this council nearly five years ago. One solution I have not heard tonight is the good old American way private enterprise," Schmalzried said to applause. "It boggles my mind why you haven't bid it yet."

Larry Godfrey of 1732 Rampart said he also was opposed to increased service charges in the city. He cited the City Charter, which prohibits tax increases unless "clearly authorized" by the charter or Missouri statutes.

He said that of the city's more than 14,600 households counted in the 1990 census, nearly 5,000 were citizens older than 65, living off Social Security benefits. Since the census, many more residents also have retired and likely are on a limited income along with the city's young and unemployed residents, he added.

"Quite a few of our citizens are on limited income and can't afford more fee increases," Godfrey said.

He blamed the need for a trash increase on the "ineptitude of the city."

Miki Gudermuth of 1314 Brookshire said she was as much opposed to the reduction in trash collection as she was to the higher fees. She also said very few people in her neighborhood require recycling collection more than once a month.

"I don't need that pickup once a week, but I do need twice a week pickup for my trash," Gudermuth said. "Don't charge us this ungodly amount for a fee for only one pickup. You're asking for a Pandora's box to be opened up again."

Opal McManus said she lives alone and that by reducing her trash service the city has "doubled the charge." She said her trash never totals more than one bag per week.

But City Manager J. Ronald Fischer said that a citizens task force will be formed to study ways to bill residents based on trash volume, which would benefit someone like McManus. He said recycling is costing the city a substantial sum with little return.

"Then why do we do it?" asked McManus.

"Because the state says we have to," Fischer responded.

He said the state's new solid waste law requires a 40 percent reduction by 1998 in the amount of waste going to Missouri's landfills.

Rhodes said he thought the costs could better be offset through budget cuts as opposed to fee increases.

But Stoverink said that aside from the state mandates, solid waste costs already have been cut in the past two years from about $600,000 to $451,000.

"The fees basically represent what the current cost is," he said. "If you don't implement that, the costs are going out the window. That's basically the most important priority here."

Stoverink said weekly recycling collection is needed as an incentive for residents to participate.

Public Works Director Doug Leslie said that based on the city's previous pilot recycling program in Woodland Hills subdivision, a reduction in recycling collection could decrease participation by as much as 15 percent.