No escape from trash mountain

By NewsPress Now

Imagine if Mayor John Josendale had a hotline on his desk that allowed him to make one emergency call to a former municipal leader.

Josendale might choose David Jones, the mayor who took his share of lumps after proposing a franchised trash service in St. Joseph. The advice from Jones might be, “Don’t pick a fight with the trash haulers.”

Trash haulers are to St. Joseph what tech entrepreneurs are to Silicon Valley or oilmen to Texas. There are an awful lot of them, so when they make noise it’s hard to ignore.

These haulers are steamed over a proposal to raise landfill rates to $125 a ton, up from $32. That’s a lot to swallow in one spoonful. There’s a reason all those sewer rate hikes were phased in.

The city will try to blame any significant increase on the Department of Natural Resources or a consultant who made the recommendation, but elected officials should know that’s not how it works. Just like the sticker shock over sewer bills, people will blame the city if its leadership is seen as driving the increase. The average ratepayer grumbles about the Missouri Public Service Commission, but the really serious complaints are reserved for the utility company when bills skyrocket.

With landfall fees, the city can’t just point fingers at inflation or environmental regulations. Four years ago, City Hall gave an optimistic appraisal that an additional 60 acres would give the landfill another 40 years. Now, a consultant says all that trash is starting to pile up and the current landfill cell could run out of space next year without drastic action from the council. The citizens of St. Joseph – not just the trash haulers – should be asking if someone was asleep at the wheel for the last four years.

The city finds itself in a tough spot. Keeping rates low means that St. Joseph’s landfill becomes a dumping ground for trash from other communities. That’s why the St. Joseph landfill is filling up so fast.

Ultimately, the City Council is not obligated to create a favorable business climate for trash haulers any more than the Federal Reserve should only consider the impact on mortgage lenders when deciding on interest rates. There’s a bigger picture to keep in mind. With the city, it’s the responsibility to have a viable landfill for future generations. Failure to do so means local trash haulers have to make the drive to someplace like Johnson County, Kansas, to dump their garbage. We assume they wouldn’t like that, either.

But the council has another goal in mind – the same one that influenced former Mayor Jones and his ill-fated dance with franchised trash service. St. Joseph has a reputation as a trashy town. The council and the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce are always talking about the city’s appearance and the need to clean things up.

It’s hard to believe that a 290% increase in landfill rates won’t lead to an increase in illegal dumping when those costs are passed on to customers who pay for trash service. You can say that everyone has to have trash service, but everyone has to drive with unexpired tags, too.

If you’re the city, and you want St. Joseph to look less trashy and you want voters to one day approve an ambitious bond issue for a sports complex, then you need to figure out a way to put the brakes on an increase of this magnitude.