The Municipal Services Committee reviewed the proposed Department of Public Works changes to bulky overflow and leaf collection and snow removal.
I had been somewhat tetchy about it because it was listed as an information item which would not be voted on but it seemed like something that ought to be voted on. However, it was an information item at this meeting and will come back to the next committee meeting as an action item.
A city staffer gave an overview of their plans and why they were making this proposal. He said they were trying to solve several challenges that the Department of Public Works is currently facing so the proposal was a package trying to address all of those issues together. They were aware that there were probably better ways to handle each of these items individually, but they needed to work with them all together as a whole in order to make sure everything fit without adding staff or putting an additional burden on taxpayers. He acknowledged that the plan was not perfect and said they were open to hearing what everyone had to say about it.
Implementing these changes would help them collect leaves in a more environmentally responsible way and provide yard waste collection for a longer period of time and reduce the volume of garbage that they bring to the landfill which is something that the Outagamie County Solid Waste Department has been talking to them about for a decade. It will also help solve issues they’ll be facing next year regarding their snow removal process.
The DNR doesn’t approve of Appleton’s leaf collection process which involves residents placing the leaves in the street which increases phosphorus runoff. They’ve looked at ways to reduce that and determined the best option was to vacuum leaves off the terrace; however, they won’t be able to vacuum things like pumpkins and large garden debris. As a result, they decided they would pick those items up by hand on a monthly basis from April-November.
That change, however, would affect the collection of bulky overflow. They could not continue to pick up all those items in addition to the brush collection without adding staff. He stated that they did not have an agenda to eliminate bulky overflow. However, they looked at the services they provide and compared it to the services other communities provide in order to see if there was something they could cut back on.
They were recommending to the committee that they change the bulky item collection. They would still offer it but only on the non-brush weeks, and they would charge for the services. [He said they would collect brush every other week from April-November, but the memo shows them collecting brush once a month from May-November and twice only in April.] They believe the charges would be necessary to keep the volume from being extremely high. He noted they used to offer a once a month bulky overflow program and they collected as much during those 12 times as they do with their current twice monthly program. It was causing injuries and burnout among their staff and increasing overtime so that is why they don’t think they could just offer free bulky overflow once a month or 4 times times a year.
They looked at free bulky overflow as a service they could realistically get rid of because it was one of the few services they provide that residents have other options. There aren’t realistic option for snow removal or garbage collection, but if a person buys a mattress or an appliance the delivery company will haul those away for a fee, dumpster rentals are available, and there are multiple places to donate items.
They also wanted to discourage people from just placing items out on their terrace and leaving them there indefinitely which is why they created a $250 non-compliance fee. He said several communities don’t have a program to remove that sort of stuff, so their only option is to turn it over to their inspections department and then go through the court system. Eventually somebody will have to pay for it and get rid of it, but that takes time and meanwhile the neighbors are left having to stare at it. He said that the $250 fee was similar to what renting a dumpster would cost. He said they would provide notice to customers who leave items on their terrace just as they currently do, informing them of what the City’s policy is and giving them 48 hours to remove the items before the City collects it and bills them for it. He estimated that the City would see roughly $27,000 in savings per year with this change.
He then went on to talk about snow and ice removal. Their 5 year contract for sidewalk snow removal expires at the end of the upcoming season. Their contractor told them 4 years ago that at the end of this contract term they were going to retire. There aren’t a lot of contractors that provide those types of services. They discussed having multiple smaller contracts where they could divide up the city between smaller companies. But if they have City staff take over, by not having to collect bulky overflow during the winter months they would be freed up to focus on sidewalk snow removal. That way they won’t have to worry about whether they will be able to find a contractor willing to take the job.
Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) asked if the city would still charge the same assessment for snow removal. [I took that to mean when the City receives a complaint and has to clear a property’s sidewalk of unshovelled snow.]
The staffer confirmed that charge would remain the same.
After that presentation, the floor was opened to public comment.
Walter Blank, a member of Appleton Concerned Taxpayers was the only person who provided comment. He said he appreciated the hard work they do and appreciated the explanation that had been given. It gave him a better understanding that this was really four proposals combined into one; he hadn’t taken it that way when he initially read the proposal. He wanted to specifically address the claim that Appleton is the only community in the area offering free bulky overflow collection. He said he did a little research on bulky item pick-up that morning and failed to find truth in the statement that Appleton is “the only community offering a regular, free bulky item collection.” In fact, he found that none of the immediate surrounding municipalities charge for that service, and only Oshkosh had a per item fee. He urged the committee to reconsider the fee and said that it was things like this that give Appleton a bad name when it comes to taxes and fees. He said he’d posted about it on social media and received two comments. One, from an Appleton resident, was “Typical Appleton.” The other one, from a new area resident, was, “That’s why I didn’t buy a home in Appleton.” He didn’t like that, because he was proud of the city and thought they did hard work. After the explanation offered, he could see some rationale behind a user fee, but he encouraged them to market it better. He didn’t think the rationale that none of the surrounding communities do this was correct. He provided a printout to the committee showing the free bulky item collection practices of neighboring municipalities.
He thanked them for the explanation and thought there was some merit to proposal, but he thought they still had a decision to make on whether they really wanted to do this fee increase. He said there was already a 17-25% fee increase enacted this year in January on the City’s wastewater and these fees add up.
Director Paula Vandehey thanked him. She said they did include a comparison of several other communities that they had checked with. She didn’t think they meant to say that no one else is doing this. They just mean to say that they weren’t aware of anyone providing it at Appleton’s current level of service.
[They specifically said in their report, “We researched several communities across the State and compared our services to theirs. It appears that we are the only community offering a regular, free bulky item collection. Therefore, we looked at finding a way to align our service level with other municipalities freeing up resources to perform brush collection and winter snow removal.” Although the other municipalities don’t provide as extensive of service, they do provide “regular, free bulky item collection.” It’s straining to say otherwise.]
Alderperson Joe Prohaska (District 14) asked if they had looked at offering a free drop-off at the Glendale site. That would keep staffing free and still allow people to get rid of the stuff that they need to get rid of without cluttering up the terraces.
Director Vandehey said people can already bring their garbage there, but for a fee because the city has to bring it to the landfill and use staff to do that. The city is also charged a fee by the landfill for doing that.
Alderperson Prohaska wanted to know how they get rid of the stuff they currently get. They still bring it to the County landfill and still have to pay for it, so it seemed like the money wouldn’t change; it would just be a staffing issue.
Director Vandehey said they only have so much staff and so much equipment and they’re trying to provide as many services as possible. If they have more people bring their bulky overflow to the Glendale site they would need more dumpsters because they already often get filled up over the weekend and they would need more staff to make more trips so then instead of doing yardwast collection they would be running trucks of garbage back and forth from the yardwaste site to the landfill.
Alderperson Prohaska didn’t think that made sense and thought they would be transporting the same amount of stuff as currently, just not picking it up from the terrace and instead transporting it from the Glendale site.
Director Vandehey then said that, actually, the goal is that they would be collecting less stuff. They hoped that by not providing free bulky overflow pickup or letting people drop it off for free at the Glendale site that people would start paying retailers to haul away their old appliances and mattresses, etc when they purchase new ones, or to try to sell their old items on resale sites or donate them. She said once people needed to pay they would start getting more creative about finding a second use for that item.
Alderperson Prohaska was concerned that some people might simply dump it at someone else’s house as happened regularly in Superior when he was growing up.
A staffer said they deal with that now. They’re out every day picking up stuff that people dump in industrial parks. The Police Department has cameras up and they are able to catch a lot of folks who do that. With the prevalence of doorbell cameras, they’ve come a long way in reducing that.
Director Vandhey said she didn’t want it to seem like this was something they didn’t want to do. The bottom line was that they have limited resources and are just tyring to provide the most services they can with those limited resources.
Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) said his district was 50% rental properties and it was common on any given day to see a renter moving out and putting a lot of stuff on the terrace where it would sit for days until the next bulky overflow pickup. He thought these changes would cause landlords to respond more to unsightly piles of junk on terraces.
Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) asked if there would be a benefit to the staff if the City stopped allowing residents to drop off bulky items at the Glendale site where it would then have to be transferred to the landfill.
A staffer said there was a fee they had to pay to the landfill to dump those items as well as the time they spending running those dumpsters back and forth. They currently have 5 dumpsters which fill up by the weekend, then on Monday morning the City has to run those to the landfill and empty them, so there is some labor and fuel spent as well as the use of the truck which they need for other things. Regardless, he said they would like to keep that option available to residents.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) wanted to take a moment to “speak for the planet” and said she was in favor of anything that reduced the amount of non-compostable material that goes to the landfill. [Maybe she didn’t intend to come off sounding this way, but I thought her statement did raise the interesting philosophical question of to what extent, in what areas, and in what manner is it appropriate for government officials to try to modify the behavior of the population?] She asked if they had any sort of estimate for the amount of reduced tonnage they thought they would get from eliminating free bulky overflow.
The staffer estimated a savings of $13,000 and a reduction in garbage by 520,000 pounds. He reiterated that they know there’s a better way to provide bulky overflow collection, which is the way they’re doing it now, but they need to be freed up to remove snow from sidewalks and collect brush yardwaste and they also need to meet DNR regulations. They felt the yardwaste was something everyone who owns property has and they don’t have another way to get ride of it whereas for bulky overflow they could rent a dumpster or having someone else take the items, so there are other options available. [Honestly, there are options for yardwaste also. Composting springs to mind; in which case it wouldn’t even need to leave the property, and it’s not necessarily that difficult to haul yardwaste to either of the two yardwaste sites in the city.]
Alderperson Siebers asked what the cost was going to be to buy vacuums.
The staffer said there would be some upfront equipment cost that will hit the stormwater budget. For the first six units they would reuse their old automated garbage trucks by tearing out the guts of the packer in the back and mounting the vacuum on the side. It would be a relatively cheap way to get into the business. After that, they could buy some trucks with trailer unites that are specialized for vacuum collection. There would be costs in the stormwater budget but they would also see savings with the bulky item collection and snow removal.
Alderperson Doran asked how they were planning to administer the $10 per bulky item pickup fee.
The staffer said that people could call, email, or send a message on facebook and the Department of Public Works would reach out to them to schedule a pickup. They would pre-pay and could mail that in if they wanted instead of paying in person. They would not need a sticker. The department has an app that the City’s GIS Department built which would show which locations had pickups scheduled. They could pick up from those locations and then if they see bulky items in front of a property that does not have a scheduled pickup they would leave a notice at the property informing them of the policy.
Alderperson Firkus had a couple questions, but the scheduled meeting time was almost up, so he was going to reach out for those answers separately. He said he had gotten some feedback and question from residents of his district. He noted the item would be back in front of the committee in two weeks, and he expected they would have a good conversation before taking action on it.
[There’s no argument that Appleton has had a very generous free bulky overflow collection policy, and given the dynamics at play, it’s not unreasonable to pare things back, but it seems pretty regressive to go from offering what is purportedly the most generous free overflow collection policy in the state to offering no free bulky overflow services whatsoever. Almost all of the municipalities on the comparison chart the Department of Public Works provided to the committee offer some degree of free pickup. Far from bringing us inline with other communities, it looks to me like these changes would simply cause our practices to continue being an aberration just in the opposite direction.]
View full meeting details here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=859285&GUID=57A997D2-2AA7-41F8-9E2C-1C9783E47EC4&Options=info|&Search=
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