GROUP ASSAILS TRASH FEES, WANTS TO ALTER ELECTIONS

Organizers of the "Citizens Action Group for Responsive Government" said Thursday that the group's priority is converting from at-large to ward-style elections for the Cape Girardeau City Council.

About 30 people attended the group's first meeting Thursday, held at the Cape Civic Center. Although many people were there to voice opposition to a recent city trash-fee hike, Lawrence Godfrey said that without ward or "zone" representation, it's unlikely the council will be responsive to their concerns.

"We have to change the form of government or we'll never get it done," said Godfrey, who helped organize the group and is spearheading a petition drive to amend the City Charter. "That's why this petition is so important."

The petition calls for dividing the city into six zones made up of two or three voting wards each. If at least 1,756 registered Cape Girardeau voters sign the petition, the issue would be submitted to the city's voters.

Godfrey said he's unsure how many signatures have been gathered. Last week, he said he hoped to have a sufficient number to present the petition to the city council when it meets Monday. But he indicated Thursday more signatures are needed.

"I don't think we're going to make it by (Monday) unless we really get out there and work this weekend," he said.

He said of all the signatures he's gathered, only five people have refused to sign the petition. "The people are out there, and they'll sign it," he added. "They're real mad right now."

The issue that's caused the most discontent is the city council's decision last month to raise city fees particularly trash fees. With adoption of the city budget last month, trash fees were raised $1.64 per month from $8.90 to $10.54.

Residents also have complained that as part of the a city-wide recycling program, trash collections were reduced from twice to once weekly in lieu of a weekly recycling collection.

Miki Gudermuth said Thursday residents are being forced to hold their trash for a full week even though few have sufficient recyclables to justify their weekly collection.

"What we're having is not just waste-management problems. We're having money waste-management problems," she said.

Ed Schmalzried, a representative of Browning-Ferris Industries, also attended Thursday's meeting. BFI, a private trash hauler, has repeatedly asked the city to bid its trash service. Schmalzried repeated the appeal to the citizens group.

"If we were running it, we'd have to be more efficient," he said. "We can't just pass an ordinance to raise the fees."

Schmalzried said that when the company last year tried to persuade the council to bid the city's trash service, only Mayor Gene Rhodes and Councilman Doug Richards favored the change.

Gudermuth said she doesn't understand why the city wouldn't want to be relieved of the service.

"You would think if they're losing money like they say they are, that they would want it off their back," she said. "Why do they want it at a loss and such a headache?"

Gary Bunting said one of the reasons he's heard the city is reluctant to bid the service is that the city would still have to deal with trash from residents who refuse to pay their bill.

But, he added, a percentage of residents now don't pay their trash fees, which means the remainder of the population "subsidizes" their trash collection.

Schmalzried said BFI likely would contract to collect the trash while the city would continue to collect the bills. Those bills would include city sewer and water bills, so that if a resident didn't pay trash fees, his water could be shut off.

Bunting also suggested the city adopt some type of volume-based trash billing. He said the city could determine how much it costs, based on the current base trash fee, to haul away a single bag of trash.

"Right now it works out to about 85 cents a bag," he said. "You could buy stickers, and if you put out five bags, you'd pay for five bags. If you put out one bag, you'd only pay for one, because you'd only be paying for the stickers."

The city council is expected Monday to begin to appoint a citizens committee to study volume-based billing for trash.

Godfrey said it's important to get ward or zone representation on the council to make the body more receptive to residents in the first place. He said it's important that residents from all areas of the city be represented on the council.

"We argued against these fee increases and four councilmen ignored us," he said. "If you have a city council doing its job, you wouldn't have these problems."

Godfrey said that if Missourians elected their state representatives in at-large elections, most of the legislators would be from the population centers of Kansas City and St. Louis

Bunting said that of the six councilmen and the mayor, only one lives south of Cape Rock Drive.

"Yeah, and that's where all the money's being spent," said Godfrey.

He said he thought citizens were "being robbed blind" by the city administration. The total city budget in 1983 was about $10 million, compared to this year's $26 million budget, Godfrey said.

"When your budget goes from $10 million to $26 million in 10 years for the same number of people, something's wrong," he said.