CITY TRASH FEES DRAW PROTESTS; CITY APPOINTS TASK FORCE TO STUDY ISSUE

A group of residents, unwilling to concede a recent trash-fee increase, appeared before the Cape Girardeau City Council Monday to voice their complaints.

About 60 people packed the council chambers and about half the number endured the nearly four-hour meeting to await an opportunity to speak.

Miki Gudermuth questioned how the city could continually justify raising rates to compensate for losses in the operation of the solid waste program. She urged the council to instead consider bidding out trash service to private haulers.

"Each year, you talk about, `Gee, we're losing money, we're going to have to raise rates,'" she said. "We're stuck with rates going up each year to make up the shortfall."

Gudermuth recited a number of instances in the past five years where fees either were increased or money was spent and later questioned.

"Everything's studied after you throw yourself into it," she said. "That's not the way you do things."

Gudermuth said at least one private trash hauler, Browning Ferris Industries, already has said it can save the city money if the council were to bid the residential trash contract.

"If it's not being managed correctly if it's not making money why keep it?" she said.

The council took no action to reconsider the fee increase, which it approved last month by a 4-3 vote as part of the city's fiscal year 1993 budget.

But the council did appoint a nine-member citizens Solid Waste Task Force to examine solid waste issues.

Task force members include Calvin Chapman, Costella Patterson, Sarah Holt, Richmond Payne, Kathleen Ruopp, Loretta Schneider, Jean Simpson, Irvin Rasche, and Vince Seyer.

They will be responsible for making recommendations on volume-based billing options for trash collection. It also will study the city's role in the formation of a solid waste district in Southeast Missouri.

Other responsibilities include an examination of Missouri's solid waste law and how it relates to Cape Girardeau's solid waste plan, and recommendations regarding building and equipment needs for the city's recycling, trash and compost programs.

But Gudermuth questioned the purpose of a task force to study solid waste fees after the city already has decided it will raise them to cover cost increases.

"I don't know why things have to be studied to death," she said. "You've already made the decision, why do you have to spend the money and waste the time to look at this when you could have studied this yourselves already?"

Bruce Melvin of 325 S. Lorimier said he didn't think the city's reduction in trash collection from twice weekly to once, in lieu of a weekly recycling collection, were warranted.

He urged the council to instead collect recyclables only once per month and return to twice weekly trash collection. "One trash pickup per week is not getting it," Melvin said.

Don Halbert Jr. said the trash fee increases are the result of poor city management and urged the resignation of City Manager J. Ronald Fischer and Assistant City Manager Al Stoverink.

Citizens at the meeting applauded Halbert when he called the city management and city council the "most saddest I've seen in 30 years."

Robert Price told the council that many of the residents most affected by the fee increase and the reduction in trash collection senior citizens on fixed incomes weren't able to attend Monday's meeting. Also, some of those who did appear at the meeting left during extensive wrangling over other city issues earlier at the meeting.

"Most of us have to reduce our spending if the income doesn't match our expenditures," he said. "Some of us also will improve efficiency."

But Price said the city instead has simply raised fees to compensate for its solid waste losses. He said the solid waste problems primarily are attributable to a lack of general growth in the city.

Price said annual sales figures for single-family homes in Cape Girardeau declined from $27 million in 1987 to $18.7 million in 1990, before rebounding to $23 million in 1991. At the same time, home sales in Jackson increased about 20 percent, he added.

Price also said the city's population has remained essentially stagnant as have sales tax receipts in the past two years.

"If we would have increased our population by being aggressive, we probably wouldn't have to have this increase," he added.

Another resident asked that the council delay imposing the fee increase which went into effect July 1 and will show up on utility bills in August until after the Solid Waste Task Force could further study the matter.

But Fischer said the council in its 4-3 vote at both June meetings already addressed that issue and voted to impose the fees in July so that a deficit in the solid waste fund wouldn't grow.

Last month, city officials said solid waste operating costs already have been cut significantly, but that recent state mandates that restrict the materials allowed in landfills have drastically increased costs.

Stoverink said one of the issues the task force will consider is whether to open a landfill in the area. He said a public-owned landfill would cut solid waste costs significantly.

The city now takes most trash to a transfer station and has it then hauled to a private landfill in Dexter.