By Bradley Bean
City Commissioner
Fernandina Beach
February 12, 2021
You may have seen the latest news, the city wants to take control of yard waste collection. Not only does the city want to be bigger, it wants to charge our citizens more money to do so. While this story is new to our town, it is a tale as old as time. Government wants to grow and it is our job to put an end to it.
You may wonder why we are considering such a decision, so let’s back up and start from the beginning. A previous city commission signed a contract with Waste Management that required yard waste to be “bagged and bundled” in order to be collected. Although this contract was approved, we never changed the method of collection.
Since then, Waste Management has gone above and beyond their contractual obligated duties and maintained the earlier practice of using the grapple truck, even though they’ve been taking a financial loss to maintain this method of collection. After years of losing money they are looking for a solution.
The options from Waste Management are:
Plan A: Enforce the current contract. This means no change in our rates, but they will now only pick up yard waste that has been “bagged and bundled.”
Plan B: Increase rates by $6 per customer per month and maintain the status quo of the grapple method.
To me the answer is obvious. We must keep rates low for our citizens. It is not ideal to “bag and bundle,” but it is the contract as it stands. Raising rates has negative consequences. For example, there are many people in the city who do not use this service at all, and we would be raising the cost for everyone, even for them. Overall, higher rates or taxes is something I will not support.
There is a third option being proposed by the city, although it looks like a compromise, this is where we should be most cautious.
Plan C: The city takes over this duty and rates increase $3 per customer.
This option worries me the most. It grows the size of the city’s government. We in the city are kidding ourselves if we think we can be more efficient and do this for less than the private sector. How long is it before the city realizes that it cannot maintain the practice for $3?
The solution to a government problem is not to create more government. This is a lose-lose, and I hope you will stand with me against raising rates and growing the city’s government.
So the City of Fernandina “allowed” Waste Management to dump yard waste next to the water plant behind the Animal Shelter as it did for at least the ten or so years I have been on island? Surprise! It worked and everyone yard waste got picked up! Then along came an Einstein who came up with a plan to install solar panels where the yard waste was recycled into free mulch and made the “Black Claw as a lot of folks fondly called the bulk waste grapple(?) drive 45 minutes each way out to the dump because geeze wizes people…… we had to be “green”. Think 1 hour and 30 minutes diesel fumes folks. Think they can provide the same service? Do the math, not going to happen in this lifetime. Bigger City Government? How many employees 2010? How many 2020? How many “new” services have you seen? Zero other than bigger signs for The Book of Rules for beach use(think Covid-19 waves back last February along with those “pesky” seniors) At $300,000.00 each beach walkovers(City Manager quote of consulting engineers) hell we’ll just raise taxes!
Hummmmm and who can bag palm frons? PLEASE say it’s The City Manager!
Remember folks you cannot fix stupid and this is getting stupider by the month…..at your expense. Check you tax bill. Inflation? See how efficient big Gobernment was to the former Soviet Union. Coming to a city really near to you~~~~here. Wake up or shut up.
Very well said Nicholas, I couldn’t agree with you more. Thankfully, Einstein has retired from the city. He was also a “LOOSE CANNON” that the city couldn’t control, as he continually “BAD MOUTHED” the FBPD, FBFD, and any other local branch of go’vt he desired. YES, it is our City Manager Dale Martin who makes many of these decisions you spoke of!!!
I’ve lived all over the country, coast to coast, including HI. 3 were islands & 2 were other cities in Florida. Most places have different colored bins. Black or Grey for trash, Blue for recycling, and Green for yard waste. Every city had different collection frequencies for the bins, i.e. Black bins picked up twice per week, Blue bins once a week, and Green bins every other week. I’ve also seen different-sized bins offered. We recycle most of all, so we kept a big Blue bin, but went to a small Black bin for trash, and kept a large Green bin since we had a lot of yard waste, kept a neat yard and it only got picked up every other week. If you can’t (or don’t want to) break down yard waste into sizes small enough to fit into a big waste bin, maybe it’s time to hire someone to take care of your yard? My dad is 82 and he still chainsaws and splits his own firewood. Once collected, most places turned the Green bin yard waste to a designated area owned by the city, made into mulch, and then used it around the city public spaces and offered it free to citizens who could just drive there and load some up on their own. Talk about green! This yard waste was not bagged & bundled, it was just placed into the citizen’s Green bin in sizes that would allow the lid to close. Then, with no plastic or paper bags to separate, the yard waste was put into a mulching machine by hand or mechanically.
City run or privately run? Whoever can meet the job requirements and provide taxpayers the better price should determine that. Contract the work and the city doesn’t need to buy, maintain, lifecycle, etc. it’s own fleet of collection vehicles, or hire additional city workers to collect. I read claims of prior contractors placing the yard waste in unapproved places? Trust but verify – that is where a city employee is vital to hold the contractor to proper procedures in accordance with the contract. If they don’t comply, enforce breach of contract or similar punitive actions on the company to ensure our fine city and its taxpayer are getting what they paid for. Kudos to Commissioner Bean for his cautionary comments about the city taking this function over completely.
I disagree with Mr. Bean. $3-$6 is well worth avoiding the aggravation of bagging and bundling. Most won’t do it and it will just pile up. Yes, some folks do not have yard waste. Some folks don’t have kids in the schools either yet we all pay the taxes to support the schools. A nice community with good services DOES cost money. That’s part of the bargain of living in a desired area. Hire a lawn service? Good luck finding one for $3-$6 a month! We have been fortunate that the private contractor has been picking up the piles of waste in spite of no contractual requirement to do so! Time to quit skating and pay the piper. A platform of “Not raising taxes” is great grand standing theater, but our community will just deteriorate over time.
Your ‘Youth” comes thru loud and clear Commissioner Bean. Bundling and Bagging enormous amounts of yard waste each year for Seniors is a thoughtless proposition on your part. We understand the concept of reigning in “Big” government and agree with that point. The cost to most Seniors in our community to bag and bundle would be enormous as they would need to hire someone and provide appropriate trash bags and twine at an additional cost. And no one has mentioned if the bags would need to be special biodegradable bags at an additional cost to Seniors. $3 per City resident for the City to resume trash pickup with grappling trucks does not seem to be an unreasonable expansion of government in this case. Afterall, everyone pays for the Street Sweepers and no one complains because our community is visually well kept. Imagine piles of yard waste sitting on our City streets for weeks because Seniors are unable to personally bag and bundle or pay for hired help. Will the Commissioners then mandate Fines on our Senior population??
Paying your lawn man or whomever seems fine with me, because I’ve never used the service even ONCE in 15 years. Why should I have to pay more for you to have the service, that I don’t need or use??? Think about that??? My monthly FPU bill is usually LESS-THAN my FB utilities bil.
Mr. Bean,
While I agree with your opinion of not growing government, under your proposal, how will we deal with people who are physically not capable of bagging their lawn debris? For those of us with lawn services, our fees will most likely increase as those services will have to take more time and use more materials to prepare the debris for pickup. Things were running fairly well until some brainiac decided to rock the boat and we lost our dumping site. Ever since the change pickup has been less that stellar. I have had yard waste sit in my yard for 22 days waiting for pickup. Doesn’t make our neighborhoods look very attractive. Nice-looking neighborhoods benefit everyone. We all pay taxes on items that we don’t directly use but, hopefully, in the long run benefit all ie schools.
I, for one, would rather not deal with the bagging and bundling. Has there been any discussion with the airport where the debris used to be dumped to see if that can be reinstated, or another location found, so that disposal company has a much closer, and therefore a time/cost saver, location to dump the waste? Can we negotiate a change to our trash pickup to help save costs? I know that many folks on my street do not put their trash barrels out for both pickups each week. Are two pickups really necessary?
There must be some legal precedent related to the fact that the waste company has not be enforcing the contract for all of this time. Sounds as though the discussion is not finished.
It is important for you to consider your constituents/audience. While smaller government is very important to many of us, there are times when funding projects is necessary. Your youthful enthusiasm is appreciated but this is the real world and it doesn’t sound as though your proposal is serving those who you serve.
Respectfully submitted,
Christine Freeman
2125 Purcell Dr., FB
It serves me just fine and dandy.
I think this has already been resolved most folks want the “claw” to pick up yard waste and are willing to pay for it. Count me in on that. We seem to generate an enormous amount of yard waste. I simply can’t imagine trying to bag it up. That is a non-starter for me. Someone mentioned using bins or cans which would be better then bags but frankly if you just drive around and look at the volume of material put out, often with branches I think the bin idea is also not a great solution. I would stick with the claw truck as it is proven to do a great job and easy on us. The next question is should the town take it over. I’m not sure about that. I would leave it to commissioners to thoroughly study it and make the decision. “growing the government” is not really an issue for me it is whether statement that the town can do it for half the price is really true. Is it half the price today but going to be twice the price later when equipment has to be bough or pensions paid? Keep the claw but examine the cost angle closely. Simplicity is to allow the private sector to continue pickup I would initially lean to towards that personally but I trust Mr. Bean will examine the issue carefully and help decide.
Well Chris, I’ve lived here 15 years and have NEVER used this service even ONCE, so I can clearly see where this works for you, but not for everyone.
Commissioner Bean is wrong on several counts. First, I believe the truth is that Waste Management intends to raise rates anyway to try to recoup its losses of the past couple of years. It was a bad contract and the right decision is to end it, not enforce it. Second, the reason the City could perform the landscape waste disposal more cheaply than Waste Management is that the City intends to re-open the landscape waste disposal facility at the airport, thus reducing the haul from 2 hours to the Waste Management landfill to less than an hour. Mr. Bean also ignores the potential benefits of having a managed local facility that could provide mulch and compost to residents. I would bet that lots of residents would be happy to load up some wood chips or leaf compost at a City facility rather than buy bags of the stuff at a store. Lastly, Mr. Bean’s assertion that City taxpayers would come out ahead cost-wise with bagging and bundling conveniently ignores the cost of the bags and the effort involved. Large trash bags, whether compostible or not, cost about a dollar each, or maybe a bit less if purchased in bulk. Most residents in Fernandina Beach live in single family homes with yards. One only has to look when it is leaf season, or people are trimming their bushes and trees, or putting out grass clippings. On the average, the piles of loose leaves and trimmings would take considerably more than $3 per month in bags and the effort to bundle shrub and tree cuttings is more than our senior citizens should have to deal with. If Mr. Bean wants to reduce “big government”, I would urge him to stop allowing our government to impose the burden of bagging and bundling when we never had to do that before.
Thank you to Commissioner Bean for raising concern about the increase in costs to city residents for yard waste pickup. We, like many in the city, probably don’t use this service because we don’t have a large yard or plants that need trimming, etc. An increase in all residents’ rates seems a little unfair in this instance. We have a suggestion that might be helpful. Since we use the recycle service that is already included in our fees we don’t have a need for more than one household trash pickup per week. Might it possible to reduce household trash pickup to once per week and the monies saved could be used for the yard debris pickup without needing to raise the rates for everyone. The consideration of this and other cost-saving ideas by the city commission is greatly appreciated.
Thank you Bradley Bean. I retired here 15-years ago and even though my home is paid for, I can barely afford to live here any longer. EVERYTHING has SKYROCKETED in that time frame and I “FED-UP” with it all. And NO, I refuse to do a reverse-mortgage or refinance my home. I am also sick of hearing it’s only a few dollars, after 15 years of only a few dollars, now it’s hundreds of dollars after adding it all up. The island will see one huge turn-over of residents once the marina is totally completed, because so many retirees on a “TIGHT BUDGET” like me won’t be able to afford the ridiculous PROPERTY TAXES any longer.
I am an older person living on the Island who is not physically able to bag and bundle. Branches and limbs can vary from 12 inches to 6 feet. Do you suggest I purchase a chain saw and cut those that are too long before I attempt to bundle them?
There are both plastic and paper bags yard waste bags. Do we want to add more plastic to the environment if those bags are allowed? Prices and quantities of the bags range from $10 to $50 with paper being more costly.
I live on a limited income as do many ‘seniors’. Even so, I’d rather pay an extra charge to the city for removal of yard waste rather than hiring someone to handle the issue for me. I believe the extra fee would be less that hiring a lawn care company.
LJK
Waste Management is under contract to remove yard debris–a failure to do so is a breach of contract.
Mr Bean is right, the contractor must remove yard debris. Period.