Cost rising for Clintonville’s optional service
By Bert Lehman
According to City Administrator Sharon Eveland, the city’s garbage and recycling opt-out option will cost Clintonville $4,250 this year.
The option is expected to increase 10-15% next year.
That was some of the new information regarding the opt-out that Eveland shared with the city council during its March 10 meeting.
When the council met on Feb. 11, Eveland told it the opt-out option for garbage and recycling collection services is causing more work for city staff, and she would like the opt-out option eliminated.
It was also at that meeting that Mayor Richard Beggs told council members to think about how they want to handle the opt-out option in the future.
According to information Eveland shared with the council, she claimed the cost of offering an opt-out option to residents was $1,446 in 2017 and 2018.
That figure did not include labor costs.
The 2019 pre-audit final cost was $4,068, which was broken down to $1,591 for materials and $2,477 for labor.
The 2020 budget includes $4,250 to provide an opt-out option, and Eveland expects that figure to increase in 2021 by 10-15%.
Eveland also shared in her report that 230 eligible addresses opt-out of garbage and recycling collection services, which amounts to 13%.
Also, 15 addresses that are not included in the 230 opt-out addresses are opted out because they are either part of a multi-family unit with at least one unit taking the service, or right next to another single-family unit owned by the same person or entity that is taking the garbage collection service.
Ordinance violations
Eveland stated in the report that “very likely that many of these are sharing carts, which is against city ordinance.”
Rentals amount to 73 of the addresses that opt-out, while six addresses that opted out are currently listed for sale and do not appear to be occupied.
Eveland also pointed out that 20 of the addresses that opted out in 2020 have had at least one junk ordinance or garbage complaint since 2017.
“A couple homeowners who are listed as duplexes on the assessor’s roll but claiming single-family in regards to garbage charges are refusing to go through (the) process to be reclassified as single-family,” Eveland said in the report.
She added that this is another reason why having to use the assessor’s roll to handle the garbage opt-out option is an issue.
Other challenges include tracking carts and the transition from one year to the next when Harter’s has to pick up carts from those who opt-out, but had the service the previous year, and dropping off carts to those who need the service but opted out the previous year; separate billing for a handful of tenants who want garbage service but whose landlords opted out of the program; and reconciling the city’s list of addresses in the system with what Harter’s has for carts out in circulation.
Eveland said in the report that a future step the city could take would be to compare the opt-out list with the Clintonville Area Waste Services (CAWS) sign-in sheet to see if those who opted out are actually going to CAWS.