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Lid off garbage debate; sequels to come
By CARRIE JOHNSON, Times Staff Writer
INVERNESS -- The county's local garbage haulers aren't waiting for a series of town hall meetings to express their opinion of mandatory garbage collection. Fewer than 24 hours after the County Commission opted to delay a decision on the controversial proposal until more residents could voice their opinions, the haulers issued a preemptive strike in the form of a newspaper advertisement. "We have heard from the people in the last two meetings," states the ad, which was paid for by five local haulers. The ad is running in the Citrus Times today. They have also paid for an ad in the Citrus County Chronicle. "No mandatory garbage is what they said. How many more meetings do we have to have to tell the commission no before they understand?" Although the plan to implement countywide garbage collection has been put on hold indefinitely, there are still plenty of Citrus residents who fear the issue isn't dead. No one is more flummoxed by the public's skepticism than Commissioner Josh Wooten, who proposed the idea of tabling the issue until a series of community meetings were held. Wooten said his proposal effectively killed mandatory garbage collection for this year. To implement the plan, a final decision must be made by June; otherwise, the cost couldn't be added to residents' tax bills. Tuesday's 3-2 vote for town meetings made that timetable highly unlikely. The schedule for the meetings has not yet been set, but it is doubtful the results could be considered in time for a June deadline, Wooten said. He said he intends to explore many alternatives for long-term waste management planning at the meetings. "We have not adequately explained this to the people," he said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "There are other options out there on how to get control of our landfill." Wooten's motion first received a warm reception from the mandatory garbage opponents who jammed the Citrus County Auditorium for Tuesday's meeting. But as the public hearing stretched on, more and more people called on commissioners to kill the plan outright. Commissioners Vicki Phillips and Gary Bartell heeded the complaints and withdrew their support for Wooten's proposal. Phillips and Bartell were rewarded with cheers. Wooten, who had been praised throughout much of the afternoon, received boos. "Why throw it in the trash can?" asked Wooten. "This is the only alternative on the table right now. Why don't they bring some other alternatives?" Wooten said he is setting up a community meeting in his district to discuss the problem of waste management in the county. He said he is open to many suggestions, including re-establishing the landfill assessment, a fee levied against citizens to pay for future landfill expansions. The assessment was eliminated by the commission in August because the landfill was no longer in debt. Some mandatory collection foes say the revenue could be used to explore alternative methods of waste disposal, such as reserving space at a giant incinerator or shipping trash out of state. Throughout all the debate, only commission Chairman Jim Fowler has remained staunchly in favor of mandatory garbage collection. He called the plan the best way to logically manage the county's solid waste. Without it, he said, residents should start bracing themselves for the creation of a new landfill. "We've got commissioners who don't want to answer these problems. But they are indisputable," Fowler said. Despite the negative reaction among some to the commission's vote Tuesday, several people said they were looking forward to the public meetings. Randy Messer, president of Goodfellas Roll-Offs Inc., a local garbage collection company, said he was looking forward to the opportunity to express his opinion to commissioners. "We'll definitely be at all of those meetings," he said. -- Carrie Johnson can be reached at 860-7309 or cjohnson@sptimes.com .
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