Roanoke Council talks trash at Monday meeting

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The Roanoke City Council spent the better part of Monday’s council meeting talking trash. Specifically the council discussed ways in which the city could alleviate the never-ending buildup of what is referred to as C&D (construction and demolition) trash at roadside locations throughout the city.
At the heart of the issue is the city’s decision last year to halt free curbside pickup of C&D trash. It had been a longstanding policy that city workers would go around the city twice a month and clean up all of the roadside rubbish. But that practice – which was costing the city over $300,000 per year – proved too costly to continue, and the city implemented a pay-for-pickup program that required citizens to schedule roadside pickups with city hall and pay fees for each item that was to be picked up.

The council was in agreement Monday that the plan has not been successful and sought other solutions to the town’s growing piles of trash.
One of the main complaints was people who leave their C&D in empty lots or in front of other people’s houses instead of their own in order to dodge having to pay the required fees. That has resulted in piles of garbage sitting on the side of the road for weeks at a time with no one to which the city can assess responsibility.

Among potential solutions discussed Monday:
Bringing back free pickups but doing them once a month instead of twice. This would theoretically cut the price of the pickups in half.

Increasing prices. The city currently charges $18 per month for residential garbage pickup to its over 2,000 homes in service. Adding $5 per month to that would generate an estimated additional $120,000 per year, which would help offset the city’s cost.

But the issue is more complicated than simply re-starting pickups and figuring out how to pay for it. The cost to reintroduce the service would require equipment upgrades as well as access to additional landfill space. All told, it is estimated that the city would need approximately $860,000 in the first year to re-start pickups and an estimated $350,000 per year after that.

No firm resolution was reached and the council agreed that further discussion was needed to find the proper solution to the problem.

Public forum
The city’s policy of limiting public comments at council meetings to three minutes per person had come under fire at the previous council meeting March 4. At that meeting Wilkie Frieson asked the council to consider expanding that time to allow citizens greater leeway when speaking at meetings.

Monday, councilmember Tammi Holley made a motion to change the allotted time from three minutes to five minutes and to give the council the freedom to grant additional time, within reason, upon request. That motion died without a second, however, and no further action was taken.