Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 14, 1994 TAG: 9409140084
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
County officials want to use the area - which includes Mount Tabor Road, the Preston Forest subdivision and Lusters Gate - as a test before expanding curbside trash collection to all of the rural, unincorporated areas outside Blacksburg and Christiansburg.
But before that happens, a committee studying the issue will have to do a better job of convincing the Board of Supervisors and educating the public, according to comments Monday by a majority of board members.
The monthly fee would cover the costs of picking up the trash and dumping it at the Mid-County Landfill. But several supervisors objected to the fee as an unfair extra tax on people in that corner of the county.
The curbside collection pilot could come back before the supervisors next month, but the board might opt to hold a public meeting first to collect comments.
The matter appeared on Monday night's agenda as if the board was ready to vote; that raised a word-of-mouth alarm among Mount Tabor residents. Supervisor Joe Gorman tried to enact the program, but couldn't get any other member's support.
Chairman Larry Linkous took the blame for the resolution even showing up on the agenda. "I wanted it on for discussion only," Linkous said. "I can guarantee that there will be some public meetings" before the board does vote.
Montgomery is the only county in the New River Valley without mandatory curbside pickup. The Mount Tabor area got the nod as the pilot because more than 50 percent of homes there already use curbside pickup through a private trash hauler, Gorman said.
County residents already pay a utility tax on electric, telephone and gas bills. The revenue collected with it pays landfill tipping fees to dump the garbage collected at green-box sites scattered around the county.
The goal of curbside pickup is to reduce the amount of out-of-county trash dumped at the county's many green collection boxes, and eventually phase out the green-box system. Another goal is to improve recycling efforts in the rural areas, in a bid to meet state mandates for recycling. Once the green-box sites on Mount Tabor Road and Brush Mountain are no longer used for trash, the county could shift its resources to collecting recyclables there, perhaps with county employees on the site.
But charging only residents and businesses in the county's District A for the experiment strikes Supervisor Jim Moore, who represents the area, as unfair. His phone was ringing off the hook Monday with callers 10-to-1 against mandatory curbside pickup. Linkous reported a similar reaction.
One way the county could lower the $12 to $15 fee is to apply homeowners' utility tax payments toward the curbside pickup fee.
Blacksburg has mandatory curbside collection of trash and recyclables; Christiansburg does not require such pickups, but the service is commercially available. Pulaski, Floyd and Giles counties all have curbside collection. Montgomery shelved a similar pilot program in the Mount Tabor area in June 1991 because of protests from residents.
by CNB