During their 06/21/2021 meeting, the Municipal Services Committee reviewed the Department of Public Works proposed operation changes regarding bulky overflow collection.
As you may recall, DPW had initially proposed the complete elimination of all free curbside bulky overflow collection, but after receiving community feedback, they changed that to include free curbside pickup of no more than 2 items on an approved list per pickup period.
Director Paula Vandehey spoke about the changes to the committee. She said that they know change is hard, but if the city wants to be part of protecting our waterways and extending the life of our landfill then we’re going to have to change some of our behaviors.
Having said that, she went on to say that they spent the two weeks prior to the meeting answering questions and listening to feedback the community gave via alderpersons’ Facebook pages and calls to DPW and the Mayor’s office. DPW staff felt pretty proud of the modified plan they came up with in response to that feedback.
Both the original and modified proposals were based on the premise that their resources are finite so they can either add more resources or they can try to give everyone at least a little bit of what they want while also working to be better stewards of the waterways and landfill.
They put together a chart showing what they do now, what the original proposed plan was, and what the modified plan was. She offered to either walk the committee through that or just start answering questions. The committee members had already all reviewed the proposals so opted to dive right into questions.
Alderperson Joe Prohaska (District 14) didn’t have a question but wanted to thank Director Vandehey and the Department of Public Works for the modified proposal. It really eased his constituents’ concerns and he thought it was a good compromise between the city and the residents.
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) could only imagine how much work went into creating the original proposal, and thought they did great work going through all the questions and feedback and creating the modified proposal in only two weeks.
He thought some of the feedback had expressed dissatisfaction that the city was changing services but not reducing fees, and he thought it was going to be a challenge to explain that the costs would go up, due to external factors, if the city tried to continue offering comparable services. He thought if they could be patient and work with people who have concerns about taxes staying the same while services are changed they should be in pretty good shape. He thought the new plan would definitely be better received than the first iteration was.
Director Vandehey said that although the item was just an informational item at that time, looking forward to when it would be voted on, if it is approved, the Department of Public Works will be working with the city’s communication coordinator right away to start educating city residents because there will be a lot of changes and it was going to take some time to get used to those changes. She stressed they were not looking to fine people. They knew there was going to be the need for a lot of education, and they were going to work on that.
Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) thought the issue of extending the life of the landfill was important and was something that potentially a lot of residents didn’t necessarily take into account. He wondered if Director Vandehey could speak about how, when the Outagamie County landfill closes, Appleton will have to truck refuse up to Brown County as the next alternative and how much more of a burden that will put on the city and taxpayers.
Director Vandehey said that, when the Outagamie County landfill was filled, it would become a transfer station, so Appleton would still get to truck its waste to the Outagamie County landfill, but that garbage would then need to be trucked to Brown County. They know that there will be additional costs related to that, but they don’t know much more those costs will be. She said it was definitely of benefit to everyone in Appleton to extend the life of that landfill.
Alderperson Doran said he appreciated that that was something city staff had taken into considering when putting together this plan. He thought it was maybe something worth reminding people about as they learn about these changes.
Alderperson Firkus agreed. He also thought maybe the changes the city was making regarding leaf pickup to be inline with the DNR’s preferred policy for phosphorus levels could open up the potential for the city to receive grants in the future that could benefit taxpayers.
Director Vandehey said that she had one more point, because she didn’t want these changes to all be about money, but she thought sometimes it takes someone forcing us to change behavior before we really start doing things differently. Right now, the Department of Public Works will go and pick up furniture and bring it to the landfill; their hope is that these changes will cause people to think twice about throwing things away vs giving them to someone else who is willing to continue using them.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=859284&GUID=765DEFC6-4104-46C7-AC95-F5445C5C27A0&Options=info|&Search=
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