FORT FRANCES—After much debate during a budget meeting Monday evening, residential property owners will be getting a voucher to dump one half-ton load at the landfill for free this year.
Citing the appearance of some residents’ properties as the greatest source of complaints he heard from taxpayers last year, Mayor Roy Avis said he brought the idea forward this year to give people a reason to clean up their yards.
This would in the form a voucher so that property owners would able to use the free load whenever they wanted and not be restricted to one day.
It would be limited to a half-ton load, which is worth the minimum tipping fee of $15. Any more and the user would pay the difference.
While details still will have to be sorted out, vouchers only may be given to residents on a basis of one voucher per property, so multi-residential property owners would get one voucher for that one property (not one for each resident in that dwelling).
The priority is to clean up area yards, not the interior of each dwelling.
Unlike the free tipping day for yard waste, this voucher would permit users to dump non-organic waste at the landfill. However, users must not dump off waste that should be recycled (i.e. anything that could go in a “blue box”).
While noting the town still has a long way to go regarding waste management and recycling, Coun. Ken Perry said he wasn’t opposed to a free half-ton truck load a year.
Coun. Paul Ryan agreed, noting he’d be interested in seeing how many vouchers are mailed out and how many get used.
Couns. Andrew Hallikas and John Albanese also approved the concept, at least on a trial basis.
But the idea was not met without opposition. A report from Doug Brown, manager of Operations and Facilities, noted that distributing such a voucher would provide an incentive for residents to clean up their yards and be a “political gain” for council.
On the other hand, it might cause residents to “stockpile waste” in anticipation of the getting a free voucher year after year.
It also runs contrary to the provincial government’s ongoing mandate to try to reduce the amount of waste going to the landfill (a target reduction rate of 60 percent for this year), and does not support the mantra “reduce, recycle, and reuse.”
As well, offering free tipping passes to the public will mean a loss of revenue and increase in operating expenditures for the town’s waste management system, thus increasing the net operating deficit for 2008.
“It’s going to affect taxation,” Brown warned Monday. “The bottom line is there’s going to be less revenue going to the landfill site and it’s going to have to be made up somewhere.”
Brown said he estimated the revenue loss at $53,000.
“I’m on the O&F [Operations and Facilities] as chairman of that committee, and we would like to see waste management become self-funding by 2010,” noted Coun. Rick Wiedenhoeft. “That is still a worthy goal.
“If we can achieve that and yet accommodate this day . . . if we can somehow work it so we can still achieve our ultimate goal and give the citizens of the community a little break, I’d be interested in looking at some options,” he added.
Later in the meeting, Coun. Wiedenhoeft said the voucher “might provide an incentive to clean up residential property” but added, “I don’t think it’s necessary to provide an incentive” and that some people “like to live in pig pens” and won’t take things to the dump no matter what.
“But we’re making an attempt. We’re trying,” countered Coun. Ryan.
“If we can’t find a way to make this less impactive on taxation, then I don’t think I support it,” said Coun. Wiedenhoeft.
Coun. Sharon Tibbs also voted against it.
“We have to take responsibility for ourselves,” she remarked. “I don’t think taxpayers that do it [clean up their property and go to the dump] on a regular basis should be sharing the cost with those that don’t.”
Couns. Tibbs and Wiedenhoeft separately noted that maybe council should consider increased bylaw enforcement of property standards.
Rick Hallam, superintendent of Planning and Development, said the town’s bylaw officers are hard working and already field plenty of calls regarding property standards issues.
“We don’t have the people resources to become the backyard police,” he remarked. “For them to do anymore would require the town to hire more officers.”
Hallam also suggested council may want to work with his department and start a property standards committee to determine what “level of cleanliness” should be maintained within town limits, and include it in a property standards bylaw.
“We need to have a plan that says, ‘This is what the acceptable standard is,’ before we start pounding on people’s doors and telling them to clean up their mess.
“Otherwise, they’re going to say, ‘Is that because you don’t like it or is it because it doesn’t meet a particular standard?’”
Council approved the vouchers on a one-year trial basis but referred the matter to the Operations and Facilities executive committee to hammer out the details (i.e., their appearance, means of distribution, how will they be tracked, whether they’ll be transferable, etc.)
(Fort Frances Times)
Fort Frances Times
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