Above: The Transfer Station will be just one of the topics explored in an upcoming citizen survey
Southborough officials want to know if they’re doing a good job. It’s a question they plan to put to residents in a citizen survey later this fall.
Town Administrator Jean Kitchen told selectmen earlier this month the goal of the survey is “to identify essential services and find out how good a job we’re doing.”
In addition to gauging citizen satisfaction, Kitchen said the survey will ask residents to weigh in on options for closing the $250K annual shortfall in the town’s trash disposal budget, options like privatizing the Transfer Station or moving to a pay-as-you-throw system.
Selectman John Rooney said any questions about Transfer Station options should include the corresponding cost implications. “Everyone is enjoying the status quo, but if they want to continue the status quo, it’s going to cost them,” he said.
Rooney also suggested the survey should pose questions about how to increase participation in Town Meeting, such as by allowing remote online voting.
Kitchen said the survey is being created with the help of three students working on their masters degree at Clark University. She said the survey will be sent out to a group of randomly-selected residents, but selectmen said they would rather see all residents invited to participate.
“I’m not sure how useful it will be if we just do a sampling,” Rooney said. “It should go out to all residents … otherwise I don’t see any utility in it.”
Kitchen said after the survey is conducted the town plans to collect additional information through small focus groups.
What do you think? What questions would you like the town to ask? What do you hope comes out of the survey? Share your thoughts in the comments.
How receptive would you be to opening the transfer station on Sunday?
Would you be willing to eliminate another day (i.e. Wed and/or Thu) to compensate?
Chris,
I wouldn’t like to work on Sundays.
Cathy
I would imagine that there would be overtime or time and a half involved in
Sunday employment hours?
I would LOVE it!! The weekend is when we are around to make all the trash yet we can’t dispose of it. I would be all for it. There are ways around the overtime/time and half. Not everybody that works Sunday gets paid time and a half. We would have to look into that. I think it is a great idea as well as opening earlier at least 2 days a week so those of us working stiffs can get there before work.
I do think that all hourly workers who work on Sunday are paid time and a half by statute and certainly any member of a town worker union would get that rate. That said, the incremental cost should not be much, especially if off-set by a reduction in hours on another day during the week. My preference: full hours on Wed, Fri – Sun and maybe reduced hours on Tues or Thurs. Leaving garbage around on hot Summer days from Saturday night until Wednesday morning is simply not what most of us prefer.
A “pay as you go” system is long overdue for Southborough. It could also serve as an incentive for all of those who, for whatever reason, do not recycle. Our family recycles and we seem to generate one small kitchen “garbage bag” partially filled on a weekly basis.
Almost all of our “trash” is recyclable.
Each time we visit the transfer station and toss our “garbage bag” we see the compactor filling with mostly recyclable items.
Let’s adopt a system where you’re allowed up to a threshold value free (by weight), then pay for anything beyond that. Let those who generate the most trash stop free-loading off those who “discard responsibly”.
The one fee for all – unlimited use is not working! well, I suppose it *is* working for the big users. Why should they be subsidized?!?
I’ve got a few questions I’d like to see on a town survey.
1. How are we doing with plowing? Is your street plowed within 4-6hrs after the a significant storm (6inches or more)?
2. Since we’re having difficulty managing the transfer station costs and increases are inevitable perhaps we should make the jump to town collection. Would residents prefer trash pickup instead of the transfer station?
Personally, I’ve been quoted $50/mo for private weekly pickup, but I wonder if we could get it cheaper if the whole town was participating? If we could get the collection to a more reasonable level I think that would be a popular option. At $175/yr we’re paying $14.58/mo. I think a lot of people would be willing to pay $25-$35/mo for pickup. Personally I feel like I need a van/suv/pickup just to handle my garbage in a sanitary fashion. Buying a separate car for carting trash around is certainly not cost effective, which is why I’d be willing to pay for collection.
I did some rough math and based on an assumed 92% usage of the 9,700 population we’d need to increase our annual sticker price about $28/yr ($2.5/mo) just to meet this year’s gap. I agree there is a big difference in jumping from $14.58/mo to $17.08/mo as opposed to $14.58/mo to $30/mo. Therefore a follow up question might be what amount might you consider paying for collection.
3. What would be an acceptable monthly cost for trash pickup? 25/mo, 35/mo or 45/mo.
4. Should the town allow online voting at the town meeting?
I know this wouldn’t allow for amendments, but I’m curious to know how often amendments are actually made to a decision at the town meeting. Anyone know? I also think having a better representation of the town voting on matters outweighs the ability to have ammendments made during the meeting. Perhaps we could utilize some sort of online meeting software to give residents the ability to watch the live feed, propose ammendments, which are annouced by the moderator and then a vote can be taken right there. I have to imagine there is already online conference software available, which can allow simultaneous video, audio, chat and voting. We might even get a company to discount it if they could then use us as a plug for how their software can help small town government give back to the community!
We have never used the transfer station. Our weekly private pickup has been around $43 a month. We couldn’t be happier with the company “Allied Waste”.
What does Northborough charge for trash? I know you have to buy bags, but they have curbside trash and recycling. What would the cost difference be for that type of service?
Survey out to everyone or not at all, or maybe the selectmen could just hang out at the dump on a Saturday if they can find a parking spot.
Barrels on the side of the road are ugly, trash trucks are loud and unsafe for the neighborhoods. Trash barrels on the side of the road plus snow equals a disaster.
Pay as you throw by weight… Install scales, long lines, how would that work exactly?
Pay as you throw by bag… Stickers on bags or town sanctioned bags?
I’d pay another $50 a year to avoid doing any of these.
Why not have someone watching the compactor at all times. Everyone has seen someone dump recycling in the compactor. Calling them on it is a lot easier when there is a transfer station worker there to back you up and take their plate.
Time to fine the abusers and to charge more for contractors dumping construction debris. Less in the compactor = less cost.
It also time to close the freebie shed to yard sale debris. It makes a traffic mess on the busiest day and the transfer station employees are busy throwing out the trash from the shed when they should be watching the compactor.
I’d like to see the numbers on the volume of trash vs recycling and compare a Wednesday to a Saturday…
That traffic could also be lessened by allowing a way out for people who only have trash. Maybe allowing the street side of the compactor to exit without going past the recycling.
I would pay more to get more staff and have a faster and more eco-friendly experience.
All very good points. I agree, however I do like the swap shop, but you really do see so much stuff that makes you think – Why didn’t they just throw that out? I would also vote for Sunday or Monday hours instead of Wed or Thurs.
Provide a complete list of all of the Town’s departments, commissions, boards, etc., that are dependent on taxpayer money, and then ask:
“Among all of these, which single one would you chose to cut/close down in its entirety if you had to choose one?”
I would also have a space for optional additional comments as well.
I’m not necessarily in favor of such a step, but I believe that the information gleaned from even asking the question would be very useful.
First lets make it clear again that there is no GAP in the trash disposal budget. This is a service that town taxes partially pay for and stickers partially pay for. There is a vocal minority who get private haulers who don’t want to have town taxes paying for a service they don’t use. If the town agrees that that is unfair, the only fair way to increase the sticker price to cover the “gap” is to make sure that our taxes DECREASE by the amount that is currently funding the transfer station. Anytime the sticker price increases and our taxes don’t go down its equal to a property tax increase on transfer station users. With that out of the way…
I didn’t exactly follow southborough dave’s math, but I like where he is going with it. The way I see it, we are each paying $15 month in sticker costs and $12ish in property taxes for the current trash system, totaling $27 a month or $324/yr. Even with his 50 quote, I bet at the max it would be 40 if we were all doing it, totaling 480. I would pay 150 more for curbside collection. However, 40 still should be way over.
In peapody, they are paying 1.7million a year with JR ( http://peabody.patch.com/articles/the-cost-of-trash-pick-up-and-recycling#photo-5134949 ) according to wikipedia there are 18000+ households, so that is about 100 bucks a year per household. Hopefully somehow that is wrong because I feel like we are getting ripped off. I know we aren’t as big or dense as peabody, but $324 vs 100 a year seems like it should cover it. While Matthew brings up the valid downsides, I would wager he is in a very small minority thinking they are deal breakers.
On the survey, there should be a concept of “how important is this issue to you”. The survey could show we all think something is going very badly, which would then get time and money spent fixing it, but in the end if no one really cared that much, it was still a waste to fix it.
Teacher salaries and the whole school budget process was certainly a hot topic this year. There are probably a bunch of good questions that could be asked regarding this.
The what to do with Neary has been brought up too.
I also remember a chance for the town to buy or doing something about some land on the market. If people think the town should take a more active roll in this kind of thing would be interesting.
How do people feel the Board of Appeals should function. Strict or grant everything.
What about speed limits around southborough. I find some to be high some too low, and the 20mph signs 100 yrds before stops just weird.
And finally would people rather vote on town meeting issues via a ballot at election time..
We need to begin asking questions about these charity car washes which seem to take place at the transfer station numerous times each year. How much is this costing the town? How much water is used/wasted? Are the hoses just running non-stop or do they have sprayers attached? Are the kids properly supervised so that large amounts of water are not wasted? What kinds of detergents are being used and where is the runoff going? Our transfer station is directly adjacent to a wetland area. Is the runoff going there? Has the Conservation Commission ever been approached on this subject? I read recently that it is far better for the environment to cooperate with a local car wash to hold a charity car wash at their facility since a car wash is equipped with the proper filtering devices and run-off control, which our transfer station is probably not. They might use less water and be better for your car too. We have a local car wash in Southborough. Why can’t they be approached about hosting such an event? I would pay more to have my car washed at a proper facility, share the proceeds with the owner and not endanger the environment.
Water is becoming ever more precious a resource and we should be asking these questions. I hate to criticize the charity aspect of these events, but this recent one really struck me since the scouts are raising money for an environmental project. In my opinion, someone is not thinking (or teaching) this one all the way through. We should be encouraging less wasteful ways of raising money. I would prefer to pay the scouts for raking leaves, or to buy baked goods at a bake sale. Like I said above, I would spend more to have my car washed at a car wash and have a % of the money go to the owner. Could the head of our DPW, the selectmen or the Concomm answer some of these questions?
Next time you see a car wash, stop in for a wash and you can see EXACTLY how the run things. They usually only charge 5 bucks………
I HAVE stopped, depending on the cause, donated $10.00, and asked them not to wash my car. I encourage others to do the same.
What part of my post didn’t you get? Money can be raised without hurting the environment. Most of my questions can’t be answered by stopping in and watching what goes on.
The issue which has been mentioned numerous times on this blog is adding a Sunday half day or Three hour window to the Dump and closing Wednesday afternoon and if need be Thursday. I also don’t feel that it necessary to have “Town of Southboro” on the dump sticker. No need to adverstise where we live. A simple “Transfer Station” permit should suffice as the color alone deems enough proof of admittance.
Shortfall? What is a shortfall when it comes to taxes? Don’t we have a shortfall every year for police,fire and DPW? Taxes increase because of shortfalls every year. Our taxes are for town services. The transfer station is a town service. It should be fully covered by the tax rate. Any fees received by the transfer station is an offset. Why do we have to make up the difference anymore than any other shortfall in town budgets?
Towns that have trash pickup don’t ask for taxpayers to pick up so called shortfalls. Other towns include it in the tax base. Southborough should also. Quit whining about a 250,000 shortfall for the transfer station and pay attention to the entire shortfall in the town budget.
Regarding the transfer station. It is intended for residential use only (per the transfer station regulations) yet we sell stickers to commercial vehicles at the same rate. Why not either charge a lot more for commercial vehicles (minimuim $1000/yr) or actually enforce the residential only rule? Preferably the transfer station staff would do this…..
Asking residents to “weigh in” on the $250K shortfall at the transfer station with out first doing a thorough cost benefit analysis, and full description of how they would be implemented, (mandatory home pick-up for all,..), is ridiculous and amounts to nothing more than a worthless Straw Poll, or as Robert’s Rules of Order calls them, “meaningless”. Once the research has been done, it would be great to get the feedback!
Same goes to Mr. Rooney’s idea about remote voting at Town Meeting. Is it legal? What would be the cost to implement it for every house, and voter who would wish to participate? How would you make sure that throughout the evening the same voter is using the system all evening?
Until basic questions and facts are presented and answered, the questions, have no value.
By all means, ask if Town Officials and Departments are doing a good job. They are our employees! Thank you for asking! The concept of the survey is good, and getting feedback is a positive thing that can only lead to improvement.
What will be done with the information, and what comes out of the focus groups? How will the focus groups be chosen? Too, often this kind of feedback sits un-acted upon in town. Will this group work with the
Drafting Committee for Town Manager Legislation?
I agree with John when he says that other towns pay for the trash pickup with their taxes, and don’t charge residents extra if there is a “shortfall”. Other towns include trash pickup within their taxes AND they pick it up at curbside to boot, and they are included in the tax rate.
Consider the fact that our house values USED to be higher yet we’re still getting taxed on values that we cannot sell our houses for; consider the fact that my taxes of my house went from about $2700 a YEAR in 2000 to about $2100 a Quarter in 2011… and the dump stickers went from $50 to $100 to $75 to $125 to $175 in the about same course of time (think I have that right)… Consider the fact that many residents – and not just the elderly – simply cannot afford to keep up with these increases (I wish my income went up in the same percentages as my tax bill has). I know of one former neighbor who moved out of town when the taxes on their 150 year old home was more than the actual mortgage payment was. This is simply wrong, and is driving more and more folks out of town (which of course would fix the overcrowding issue in the schools).
Yes, we do need to control what goes into the dump, but raising prices without controlling the costs, and controlling what people are dumping simply makes no sense. You’ve already raised the costs tremendously. I do not want to go to pay by the bag either. Southborough needs to treat this as a town service, just as other towns do. We shouldn’t have to pay our taxes and then get these user fees on top of it. It’s sort of like college I guess, they’ll give you a scholarship for the tuition and triple the user fees…