By Sandra Smith, Mayor, West Winfield
Editor’s note: West Winfield Mayor Sandra Smith wrote this article to correct wrong information in the March 20 Star about the village’s proposal to change the garbage collection system.
The Village Board scheduled a Public Meeting at the March 11 Village Board meeting to present to the public a proposal to adopt a new Local Law implementing a User Fee to replace the use of Garbage Stickers as per Local Law No. 1 that was enacted in 1989.
Since that original law was passed, the Village of West Winfield has contracted with a local Garbage Contractor (Wheelock) for the collection of garbage, recyclables and green waste.
The purchase of garbage stickers program was developed to cover the cost of the contract, rather than add additional cost for this service into the local real estate taxes.
However, over the past seven-plus years the revenues generated by the sale of the garbage stickers has not covered this cost, and Monies budgeted to other areas of need in the Village have had to be used to make up the deficit.
This loss in revenues has ranged from a negative $1,000 to the most current deficit of minus $4,000, and the Village Board decided to propose a User Fee for each residential unit within the village.
To make this change, a new Local Law would need to be adopted prior to the Village putting out the Specifications for a new Bid Proposal for the collection of waste within the Village as the Budget for upcoming year is in process of being developed.
The Public Meeting was held to receive comments as to whether the residents of the Village wanted to stay with the Garbage Sticker Program with an anticipated increase in the cost of the stickers or did they want to adopt the new proposed Local Law which would have implemented a User Fee per residential unit.
Trustee Jim Murphy was misquoted in the Star’s March 20 story as he stated the expected cost of the User Fee would be about $200 per year per residential unit, and not the annual cost of stickers per household.
It was further stated by Todd Niederlander that the anticipated increase to the cost of the stickers could be approximately $6 per sticker, depending on the cost of the Garbage Contract.
This increase in the cost of the stickers was estimated based on the expected increase in the cost of the Contract.
The cost of the Garbage Stickers will be determined once the Bid Proposals are received and the cost of ...
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