ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 24, 1996 TAG: 9610240050
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
Over the objections of two members who warned it sends an unfriendly message to area businesses, City Council reversed its earlier vote and agreed to a charter amendment that would allow the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority to get into the commercial trash collection business.
The 4-2 vote on Wednesday means action on the plan now shifts to tiny Vinton - the third of three governments that jointly own the resource authority. The Roanoke County Board of Supervisors approved the change in September.
The authority owns the valley's trash transfer station on Hollins Road and the Smith Gap landfill in Roanoke County. It is barred from collecting trash, yet accepts area governments' residential waste and commercial waste collected from businesses by three private garbage haulers.
The tipping fees from those operations pay the $44 million debt the authority took on to build the landfill and trash transfer station in 1993.
But one of the private haulers - Browning Ferris Industries - has begun taking some commercial waste to its own landfill in Tennessee because tipping fees there are lower.
Roanoke Valley officials have warned that if other private haulers do the same, the authority could lose millions in future revenues it needs to pay off the loans. That could result in local tax increases to cover the payments.
The charter amendment also allows for the authority to collect residential waste, an expansion that nobody really objects to. That would pave the way for the three governments to combine their household trash collections, an action that could save them all money.
The objections raised Wednesday concerned commercial collections. Councilman Jim Trout said that government shouldn't try to compete with private businesses.
Doing so is tantamount to" invading the domain of the private sector with a program to replace it," he said.
"We pride ourselves on an economic program of association with business and asking business to grow," Trout added. "It just seems so unfair to me."
He was joined by Mayor David Bowers.
"I think it's done real damage to the commercial interests," Bowers said after the vote.
Councilman William White, who had previously voted against the charter amendment, this time voted for it. He said last week that the authority needs "the option" to compete with private haulers.
He was joined by Vice Mayor Linda Wyatt and Councilmen Jack Parrott and Carroll Swain, who voted for it previously. Councilman Nelson Harris left the meeting before the vote.
Vinton Mayor Charles Hill said last week that his Town Council probably will take the matter up in November.
Even if Vinton OKs the plan, the authority would need a new round of affirmative votes from each government before it could actually engage in residential or commercial collections.
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