Council meeting -- March 25, 2008 -- Notes.

REGULAR MEETING OF THE COUNCIL
OF THE DISTRICT OF COLDSTREAM

TO BE HELD ON TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 2008
IN THE MUNICIPAL HALL COUNCIL CHAMBERS
9901 KALAMALKA ROAD, COLDSTREAM, BC AT 7:00 PM

A G E N D A

1. DELEGATIONS

a. Request for Special Burning Permit 9242 Kalamalka Road (Miciuk) Ron Miciuk will be in attendance to speak to his letter.

b. Request for Special Burning Permit 7080 and 7060 Brewer Road (DeLeenheer) Irene and Greg DeLeenheer may be in attendance to speak to their letter.

c. Request for Special Burning Permit 10108 Venables Drive (Lowen) Helmi Lowen may be in attendance to speak to her letter.

d. Multiple Family Sewer Rates and 2008 Budget Mr. John Hegler will be in attendance to speak to this matter.

2. PUBLIC OPPORTUNITY TO ADDRESS COUNCIL (Total Time Allotted: 10 Minutes)

NOTE: This time is to afford members of the public the opportunity to address issues on the agenda dated, March 25, 2008. Issues that are not on the current agenda will not be heard by Council.

If you have items to address that are not contained in this agenda, please contact the Municipal Clerk to make a formal request to appear as a delegation at a future meeting of Council.

3. APPROVAL OF AGENDA

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5. REPORT OF THE CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER

(2) Universal Curbside Garbage Collection Services

• Report from the Director of Engineering Services, dated March 11, 2008

Recommendation

THAT the report from the Director of Engineering Services, dated March 11, 2008, regarding Universal Curbside Garbage Collection Services, be received;

AND THAT the District, in conjunction with the Regional District of North Okanagan, move to implement a universal curbside garbage collection system wherein a weekly collection service would be provided, such service having a one bag limit plus tags, with an interim two bag limit for a three to six month initiation period.

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I am sure Council's intentions are honourable and they hope to do the best for the community and reduce the amount of waste delivered to the transfer station. However, the approach is wrong and provides little or no incentive to reduce waste production.

As a former member of NORD's Waste Management Committee (six years on the Committee, three of those as Chair) I have been involved in many discussions on the subject of waste reduction. The general consensus was that the user pay system provides the greatest incentive for reduction.

The landfill is owned and operated by NORD. We all pay for it. That is the only fixed infrastructure needed for the service. The only question remains how the garbage is delivered there. Garbage delivery is not like water or sewer service where fixed infrastructure is required for the service delivery by local governments.

Presently the service is provided by individual contractors who pick up the trash and deliver it to the landfill. They set their rate based on the number of bags they pick up from any given household. It could be regulated by NORD to instruct contractors to charge by the number of bags using tags on each bag. That would be an incentive to reduce garbage production.

Many home owners deliver their own trash to the landfill. They pay by the bag or by weight if the load is over a certain limit. These customers generally have very low volume of garbage (one or two bags per month).

The proposal by Coldstream is to have a predetermined contractor do the job for everybody. I assume, as usual, Coldstream will administer the service for NORD. That is two administrative steps.

This service is delivered by independent businesses. Why should we interfere with businesses when they are working well, making a living, providing excellent service and allow those wishing to do the service for themselves to do so?

I do not believe that the electorate is urging Council to take over the service. I am quite sure that the service would not be cheaper. The one bag limit is still not much incentive to reduce beyond the one bag per week garbage production. The attitude will be: if I am charged for a full bag regardless of what I put to the curb I might as well get my money's worth and be less careful. However, if Council believes that there is great support for the proposal, they should initiate a public input session to gage the desires of the public.

The present system is a good insurance against the effects of a potential strike. As long as we can deliver our own trash to the landfill site we can continue doing it even if some contractors decide to strike.

Since the system is not broken I don't think Council should "fix it" because chances are after their intervention it might become permanently broken.

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