Talking trash
about private pickup

Nisly Brothers undoubtedly would do a fine job handling residential trash pickup in Marion, and Marion undoubtedly would be able to free up space in its budget by not replacing trash trucks.

But whether actual savings from reductions in the city workforce would be realized raise serious questions about the proposal.

No significant savings seemed to be achieved when residential trash pickup was moved from twice a week to once a week and when residential recycling pickups were eliminated. Manpower simply was diverted to other purposes rather than reduced to save taxpayer money.

Worse yet, the cost to residents will increase substantially — at least $3.50 a month and perhaps as much as $5.50 a month if the city adds an administrative fee to what Nisly would charge the city for pickups.

Residents wouldn’t even be able to opt out as they would in a truly private system because the city would bill them whether they want the service or prefer to take their trash to a transfer station on their own.

Utilities like refuse collection, electricity, sewer, and water should not be areas in which municipalities make money any more than police and fire services should be. The rich and entitled pay roughly the same for utilities — in some cases, even less than do those living paycheck to paycheck. As a percentage of income, utilities cost the less affluent considerably more than they do the affluent.

Marion’s refuse collection fee is quite a bit lower than what many private businesses charge, but this undoubtedly is a welcome relief to pensioners living on small, fixed income.

Worse yet, the Nisly proposal to provide residential pickup contains no indication what commercial pickup fees might be. Nisly itself has said the city seriously undercharges for commercial pickup, so it’s likely that fees — now regulated by elected officials — would soar under deregulated private control without meaningful competition.

With Marion already having high property taxes, high electric rates, and no particular advantages regarding location or work force, high commercial trash rates would be yet another strike against the community for economic development.

Where Marion made its most serious mistake was a few years ago when it could have bought an “arm” truck like Nisly uses and Hillsboro purchased at the time.

Such trucks make trash pickup something a single employee can do from the comfort of a truck cab. Marion typically sends one or two crews of two to three workers to pick up trash that a single worker in an “arm” truck could handle by himself or herself in roughly the same amount of time.

At some point, voters must ask why government continues to get more and more expensive when more and more of the tasks government used to handle have been outsourced.

— ERIC MEYER