Increase in trash fee raises a stink

Struthers council wants to make its feelings known to Allied Waste and state legislators.

BY JEANNE STARMACK

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

STRUTHERS — The mayor and the city council are at odds over whether city residents or the city’s trash hauler should pay a fee increase for garbage collection.

Council member Dan Yemma says the mayor should have signed a resolution by council that protests Allied Waste’s passing on to city residents a state- mandated fee increase that went into effect Aug. 1.

Mayor Terry Stocker said he won’t sign the resolution because he doesn’t believe the company has a choice.

The two interpret language in House Bill No. 1, the budget bill that passed in July, differently. Yemma says that law simply allows the company to pass on the fee. Stocker says the law requires it to do so.

Council passed its resolution unanimously at a meeting last month. The resolution says that Allied Waste should honor a 3-year-contract effective in May and not pass the fee increase on to city residents.

Stocker’s not signing the resolution passed Sept. 9 meant it could not take effect right away. Without the mayor’s signature, a resolution takes effect in 30 days. Yemma said the mayor should have supported council’s attempt to speak to the issue through the resolution.

He acknowledged that the resolution won’t force the company not to pass the fee on to residents. He also acknowledged the fee doesn’t amount to much money per resident.

City Auditor Tina Morell confirmed it amounts to $2.60 a year.

“So that’s not the issue,” Yemma said. “My stance is: We have a contract with them. Why go through the whole process if they change it?” He also believes the state law is conflicting with contract law.

The council wants to send its resolution not only to Allied Waste but to state legislators, Yemma said, to protest passage of legislation that allows the company to recoup the fee from residents.

Stocker said that if council wants to address the issue, it should be with the legislators. He doesn’t believe the resolution should include Allied Waste.

A line in the legislation reads, “The fee shall be paid by a customer or a political subdivision,” he pointed out.

He and Morell said “political subdivision” refers to one that has its own waste collection. Otherwise, customers, or city residents, pay the fee.

Stocker and Morell said the company isn’t violating its contract because it hasn’t imposed an increase for services — it is not keeping the money generated by the fee increase.

“The bill says the trash collectors are to collect this fee and give it to the landfills. They give it to the state,” Stocker said.

Morell said the law also indicates the fee must be collected from customers regardless of any contracts in place.

Katie Seminara, an aide for State Sen. Joe Schiavoni, D-33rd, said she and the senator studied the wording in the bill, and it appears Stocker’s interpretation is correct.

Yemma said that he still believes Allied Waste should not pass the fee on to residents.

“This is a huge, huge company.”

The fee increase is from $1.50 to $2.75 per ton of waste, with $1 of that going to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency for treatment of solid hazardous and infectious waste, construction- debris management programs, and costs associated with environmental- protection programs. The other 25 cents goes to the state’s Soil and Water District Assistance Fund.