Thanks to one spunky snowbird, the City Council may soon consider an ordinance eliminating the automatic, monthly garbage pick-up fee.
But it's going to cost you.Last month, Peggy Newbold told the Council about an issue that's been bugging her for two years. The 13 1/2-year West Valley resident and Arizona native spends seven months a year with her husband in Arizona and five months each year in Utah. She thinks it's silly for the city to assess them a fee for a service they rarely use.
"We pay $8 a month for a service we don't use. I just made a proposal for them to make an amendment so we wouldn't have to pay for it," Newbold said from her trailer in Parker, Ariz., a small town on the Colorado River.
Newbold, 67, who describes herself as a person of "limited income," said some council members were receptive to the idea. Others didn't seem so sympathetic.
Councilwoman Janice Fisher, a member of the City Council for the past 10 years, noted that "someone comes in and addresses (waiving the fee) every single year."
"The cost of taking them on and off the program has always been prohibitive. But I'm willing to check it out," Fisher said. "It probably would be less of a problem if we were doing the connection."
But in West Valley, Utah Power provides the billing for municipal garbage collection service. So if the council were to pass Newbold's proposed ordinance, West Valley would have to reimburse the utility.
Finance director Russel Sanderson is now studying the issue. Preliminary estimates show the costs of providing some type of vacation service for interested residents would cost $107 per year.
Pick up, cleaning, storage and redelivery of the automated cans alone would cost $49. That money would go to the public works department. City Manager John Patterson said that process would take about 21/2 hours to complete. Paying secretarial help to take the can out of inventory (putting the can in inventory assures it is returned and the resident restarts the service) and re-enter the data in the spring was estimated at $23. An additional $35 would go to the city's treasury department for tracking the account, providing the disconnect and re-connect information to Utah Power and billing the household in the spring.
"The cost needs to be recovered (for stopping and starting service)," Sanderson said. "It shouldn't be borne by the rest of the citizens." Sanderson, however, said that free pick-ups to "the indigent" are paid for "by the rest of the folks (in the city)." Most municipalities offer a similar service, he noted.
A quick survey of area utilities Thursday shows that all offer some type of vacation billing, but in most instances, it makes smarter consumer sense to leave service on. Reconnect fees range from $10 to $30. Gerald Larson, district manager for the Granger-Hunter Improvement District, noted that the water department's $15 re-connect fee probably just covers labor costs.
"It doesn't take much to push a key on the computer. It's just a fee we've always had. We absorb it into other costs," Larson said.
But for now, West Valley City officials continue to grapple with the vacation garbage collection issue. Patterson said an ordinance is likely, but he couldn't say how soon.
"I think it'd be a good idea to pass the ordinance so at least it will be there. But (the subscriber) will have to bear the cost of the service," Patterson said. "It's not our intent to gouge the person."