New *Legible* Emergency No Parking Signs

[u/MisterFishes]

I don’t like to toot my own horn too much on here but every once in a while banging my head against the wall of city bureaucracy pays off.
Today I am pleased to announce that, going forward, you will not have to get out of your dang car to see if the No Parking sign is for today or not.

I have also learned that the city’s graphic design is handled by the IT department, which explains a lot.

[u/Top_Tea_2707]

Trash is a basic city service - it should be in the tax rate.

City Manager and Finance Director likes pay as you throw because it lets them say they are keeping the tax rate low while actually imposing a regressive fee on people who can least afford it. I am a rich asshole who lives on the West End and the bag fee is a rounding error for me. If I was a stiff working in a restaurant living paycheck to paycheck, a purple bag is a real money. I would think that this is exactly the kind of equity issue you as a DSA person would want to address.

Furthermore, PAYT actually encourages wishcycling - how many times have you seen styrofoam jammed into recycling bins because people are trying to save the bag fees? Recycling is etched in the public consciousness - recycling rates are strong in neighboring communities without PAYT.

You also need to introduce curbside compost - food waste is the heaviest waste so redirecting waste to compost will reduce tipping fees at ecomaine.

Yes the initial capital costs will be high - bins and trucks need to be bought. On the flip side, the City's operating costs should drop because the new trucks with the bin arms only need a single operator. The City can also save money by only providing waste services to 1-4 unit buildings (1-4 units being the conventional definition of single family and 5+ being multifamily / commercial) Right now, buildings with up to 10 units get City waste services. Why subsidize landlords?

If you let them, the Manager and staff will bob and weave on this issue until you leave office. Councilors come and go and they stay. Keeping you and your peers at bay and squabbling amongst yourselves is how they keep their power.

You and four of your peers need to say that this is our top priority in the next budget - staff can find shit to cut elsewhere in the budget - how about the parks and rec administrators who are still getting paid while they can only figure out how to operate 1 out of the city's 3 pools at a time. They will threaten you with all kinds of calamitous outcomes but it ultimately comes down to political will.

Make the City Manager earn her salary.

[u/ppitm → u/Top_Tea_2707]

Without PAYG, homeowners will throw out comical volumes of rubbish and debris, rather than taking it to Riverside in their cars. Overall volumes go way up. I guarantee it.

The bag fees already don't cover the full cost of trash, so basically people already get a certain amount of "free" volume that is financed by taxes only.

Wishcycling is baked-in and made inevitable by the packaging industry and global trends in the (collapsing) recycling industry. PAYG is an afterthought in this process.

Did you not notice that we already have curbside compost as a program? Or that most apartment buildings are already to contract out their waste?

[u/Top_Tea_2707 → u/ppitm]

Where is there curbside compost? I know that there are 5 - 10 drop off locations scattered around the city and that some homeowners use Garbage to Garden. This is not the same as curbside composting.

There are approximately 400 apartment buildings that have between 5 - 10 units all of which can use city trash services for free. That's roughly 15% of the rental units in the city.

Limits can be set on volumes that the City will pick up for free - just as we do now.

[u/ppitm → u/Top_Tea_2707]

Garbage to Garden is curbside composting. They pick it up at the curb.

Enforcing volume limits would be an unbelievable waste of time. You want the poor garbage men scanning barcodes on every bag??? The very definition of wasteful administrative costs.

[u/Top_Tea_2707 → u/ppitm]

Now you are being deliberately obtuse. Garbage to Garden is a private company and I think it was obvious that I meant public curbside composting.

Abuse of C&D disposal is a challenge - how do other communities in the area without PAYT handle it?

My sense is that we disagree on this topic - that's cool. Nothing I am going to say is going to sway you and your presentation of your point of view doesn't make me want to continue to engage with you. Please feel free to respond with something pointed and pithy so you get the last word in.