Proposed changes to the city’s trash and recycling collection system face further discussion at the Haverhill City Council tomorrow.
On Tuesday’s meeting agenda, City Councilor William Macek has requested a discussion on a “alternative plan for voluntary waste reduction” and curbside pickup of trash and recycling. Macek recently criticized Mayor James J. Fiorentini’s proposal, under a new trash pickup contract, to bring automated trash and recycling pickup using new 65-gallon containers and trucks equipped with a robotic arm to empty them.
Macek proposes:
- A voluntary plan where residents may choose between toters or bags
- Reduce allowed household disposal from three to two 35-gallon bags weekly; excess trash requires pay-per-bag
- Use rear feed toter tippers rather than automatic collection trucks
- Residents will be responsible for buying their own bags or toters
Macek calls his plan “a starting point” for further discussion.
Also in council matters, plans to further discuss the request by developer Magnum Partners, LLC, that the city accept Magnavista Drive and Perspective Drive as public ways, may be subject to further delay.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. banned John H. Pearson Jr., manager of Magnum Partners, from banking in 2011 because of his role in the failure of Butler Bank, Lowell. Pearson was also fined $225,000. The Massachusetts Division of Banks seized Butler Bank in April, 2010, and named FDIC as the receiver. People’s United Bank, Bridgeport, Conn, assumed deposits.
Magnum Partners LLC member Stephen Doherty is requesting the council further postpone a scheduled public hearing until next week’s regular meeting, in order to ensure all outstanding items required by the Haverhill Conservation Committee are completed.
The Haverhill City Council meets at 7 p.m., Tuesday, in council chambers at Haverhill City Hall.
Personally I think this is simply another attempted extortion of the citizens of Haverhill. Our taxes go up, up, up, and up. Our schools are not doing their job, look around the web and collect the comments about the law enforcement, or lack thereof, and look at the conditions of the infrastructure that the City maintains. We spend money on riverwalks and trails, buying more land to extend these seldom used features. We try to build more apartments and condos with no consideration to water supply and pressure applied to current wastewater capabilities.
Why should we have to buy bags or barrels of any kind to make money for the city? Our tax dollars are going to places where there is simply no return for their investment. If the City wants to make money by changing the pickup options, let them provide the containers. If the new containers are treated the same as the current process, leave them in the street to be crushed, and blown all over the place, I don’t feel the citizens should pay a red cent for them.
Good points Jeff. At issue is the making up of the higher cost to remove our trash. What they DON’T tell you is what happens when you need to get rid of something that doesn’t fit into the tote ? A carpet or chair, ect. How does that work ? Will the elderly, people they Mayor always uses to justify things, be abke to get rid of this stuff ?
I can tell you first hand that in Lawrence that stuff is dumped into empty lots. Then their DPW has to go and pick it up. Cost savings there ? Also, I actually watched as it took almost an hour for one truck and two guys to empty the trash on ONE street of ONE block in Lawrence. Because one worker had to move all the totes out to the middle of the street because of parked cars, then the truck empties them, and then they have to be moved back onto the sidewalk. This was with NO SNOW BANKS. Triple the time and at a cost savings to boot ? Doesn’t make sense to me at all. I must be missing something.
You hit the nail on the head. They are going to regulate the amount of trash we can throw out and charge us for the rest. Another thing they forget to address is picking up the trash at businesses. Where is the Mayor on this ? Has he decided to keep doing it or does he have the guts to actually come out and tell the businesses the city now services to get their own dumpsters ?
What is the feedback from the Mayor’s Trash Pickup Trial? Has it started? If not, when does it begin? How do people like it if the trial has begun? Public officials seem to be throwing around “like the idea” or “no, I don’t like the concept” comments, but no one backs up any comments. Where do these opinions come from?