Facing budget gap, City may consider garbage fee. Mike Morris, HoustonChronicle.com ($)
(Pay-walled [again] by the Chronicle, please go read the entire article)
Stein said garbage fee foes typically are low- to moderate-income households, adding the timing is not ideal following only a few years after the imposition of a drainage fee. However, Stein said, many of the people moving to Houston want more services.
"It doesn't look very attractive. It's a tax increase," he said. "But do any of these council members have any other ideas? Tell me the other choices they have to raise that money."
Here's one choice: Don't raise the money at all.
Garbage service in Houston has a lot of competition and rates can be very cheap, depending on recycling etc. through the private sector. Also, these companies do a good job, have good safety records and typically, because they own the landfills, can provide the service for a cheaper cost. They also already have existing service in, and around, Houston so expansion would not be all that difficult or expensive. I would be very surprised if private trash haulers couldn't perform the service at a level cheaper than the city.
The idea that services such as trash are part of the city's core charge is a little bit ridiculous. While I can see the argument for items such as water, and I'm even sympathetic to the regulation of utilities such as gas and electricity, I don't view trash collection as on-par with any of those. For one, there is no common infrastructure that must be maintained at city expense. Another reason is that, unlike a power grid, trucks and landfills are, for the most part, private investments rather than public/private partnerships.
An additional benefit to allowing neighborhoods to contract with private operators is that they are then free to tailor service to their communities needs/income. It also can be easily written, into existing neighborhood by-laws that trash service is mandatory. The city can enforce this by tying funding for some projects to the existence of these by-laws. This way residents are forced to maintain their homes up to community standards.
IF the City decides that a trash fee is needed than I would think the $20/month fee is the way to go. By charging the lesser fee the City is still going to have to place a large burden on the general fund to subsidize trash collection. If they do decide to go with the cheaper fee then I'm afraid Houston is going to impose on its citizens both the fee AND a property tax increase as Mayor Parker will have no choice but to push for the repeal of the Proposition 1 revenue cap.
While I realize that privatizing any service runs counter to those of the increase taxes persuasion there are cases where it makes sense. I believe trash service to be one of those areas. Of course, I also believe that whether or not, and to what level you recycle is something best decided by neighborhoods not progressive elites who don't take the poor into consideration when making their policy decisions. When you consider the new-urbanist ideal is to relocate the poor to the outlying areas it could be said that a garbage fee is just another in a series of moves to make living within the city core less affordable.
