Council dumps free bins for cottagers on private roads
By Chris Fell - Express Staff

Council put the kibosh on the bin supply during Monday night's regular meeting after the issue was raised by Waste Management Chair Harley Greenfield.

Councillor Greenfield explained that for 25 years the former St. Vincent council had provided garbage bins on the May long weekend to the residents of Sunnyside Beach, Christie Beach and Georgian Beach. He said the residents liked having the bins that first weekend to assist in the opening of their cottages/summer homes for the summer.

Greenfield said this past May long weekend the bins were not provided and residents of those areas had contacted him about their absence and to request bins for the next long week in July. He noted that the bins were not always filled with household garbage and some transfer site material usually ended up inside as well.

However other members of council were not inclined to start handing out garbage bins to private residences regardless of what happened in the former municipalities.

"If we continue on with this, we'll have to open it up to the whole municipality," commented councillor Paul Hutchinson.

Deputy Mayor Robert Reid said council had gone through a lot of work to institute a bag tag system and providing bins would only undermine those efforts.

"This would be sending the wrong message. Will we also be placing bins in the Market Square? This could cost a lot of money," said Reid.

However members of council who also served on St. Vincent council argued in favour of re-instating the bins.

"They don't get garbage pick-up because they have a private road," said Mayor Gerald Shortt, suggesting the municipality should think about providing a smaller vehicle for garbage collection in those areas. Larger garbage trucks will not go down private roads for insurance reasons and difficulty turning around on the smaller roads.

Greenfield also noted that it appeared as if council was removing a long time service that had always been available.

"It can be argued that this was a service that was being provided that is now being taken away largely because of amalgamation," he said.

However other councillors didn't buy that argument, pointing out that services should be expected to change and evolve after a municipal amalgamation.

"We're supposed to be promoting reusing and recycling. The former Sydenham residents who live on private roads have to bring their garbage out (to a public road) and put it in a locked container," said councillor Linda van Aalst, who said private home owners shouldn't be given unfair opportunities to dispose of their garbage. "They're responsible to get rid of anything just like the rest of us by going to either the landfill and paying the tipping fees or using the transfer site," she added.

Councillor Sam Luckhardt echoed van Aalst's statement saying private road home owners would have to make arrangements to bring their garbage out to the nearest public road for collection.

"We're opening up a whole new can of worms here, it's not the ideal situation, but we have to try to treat residents fairly. Treating some people differently is sending the wrong message," said Luckhardt.

Councillor Diane Hurlburt said the beach area residents had not received any notice that the bins would not be provided and were very upset when they discovered they were gone.

"They did not hear about this in advance. I received phone calls from some very angry people saying that they had a service and it was being taken away. Amalgamation was not to take away services," she said, arguing that if the bin service had to be extended to other private beach area homes across the municipality it was a matter for the Waste Management committee to discuss.

However other members of council refused to budge. Deputy Mayor Reid questioned why the bins were even being provided.

"Why did (St. Vincent council) keep providing these bins after the Transfer Site was opened?" Reid asked.

Councillor Greenfield replied saying it was, "tradition," arguing that private beach area home owners pay a lot of taxes, but receive lower service levels. "The feeling was that this was a little extra because other services were not as much as someone on a regular road would receive," he said.

While councillor van Aalst said it was unfair to blame amalgamation on changes happening.

"We've all had to have some changes. Sydenham used to have two free bags of garbage and now it's one free bag and one bag for $2, you could argue that was a service taken away," said van Aalst. "That's progress and we have to look at our landfill situation and be responsible about this," she added.