The cost of going green

The city’s planning and environment committee is proposing residents hand over a special levy to help offset the costs of the green bin recycling program, estimated to be $68 per household. Businesses and rural residents, who do not get the green bin service, would be exempt.

Cumberland Coun. Rob Jellett doesn’t hesitate before saying he doesn’t support the proposed levy.

“Garbage pick-up is a core service, just like plowing the roads, just like fire and police protection,” he said. “These are part of your taxes and should remain part of your taxes.”

Jellett indicated he thinks the green bin program is a good one because it’ll divert waste from the landfill and save the city hundreds of millions of dollars in the future. In implementing the new program, however, costs should be reduced in other areas to pay for it, Jellett suggested.

“We shouldn’t be going to the citizens every single time and saying, ‘We need more, we need more,’” he said. “They don’t have it to give.”

Instead of supporting a user fee, Jellett noted he wants to find the money elsewhere in the budget.

Innes Coun. Rainer Bloess added that green bins are the same as garbage pick-up and should be rolled into the tax bill, suggesting the creation of the levy seems like an attempt to divert a potential tax increase.

“People are going to pay for it one way or another,” he said. “But I think creating a special levy for it really doesn’t meet public acceptance.

“My position will be to have it incorporated into the general tax bill and not show it as a separate levy.”

Bloess added he would still like to make some exceptions for rural residents not living in villages. As for the business community paying for a service they do not receive should it be rolled into the tax bill, Bloess explained it’s about a societal goal.

“There’s a communal responsibility and a communal benefit to this and the sense that we all benefit from not having to build new landfills,” he said. “We’re all beneficiaries of that, whether it’s the commercial sector (or) residential sector.”

Despite the position of local councillors, there are questions about why residents weren’t made aware of the potential for a levy sooner.

When the green bin program was initially introduced, there had been no discussion of a user fee. Jellett said councillors knew there would be a cost associated with the program, but there was never any talk about a user fee or increased costs for taxpayers.

“I think we should be paying for it through our taxes, and that we should reduce our other spending,” Jellett said.

The costs were clearly laid out when the program was brought to the table, Bloess recounted. To suddenly have a committee come forward with a separate levy “almost seems to be a smokescreen for the potential tax increase this would cause,” he continued. “I think as councillors we should be wary of tax increases, we shouldn’t try to hide those tax increases … by creating levies.”