{"id":429,"date":"2012-10-09T11:27:51","date_gmt":"2012-10-09T15:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/waste-disposal-discussions-with-richard-raines-gretchen-quarterman-lcc-2012-10-09.html"},"modified":"2012-10-09T11:27:51","modified_gmt":"2012-10-09T15:27:51","slug":"waste-disposal-discussions-with-richard-raines-gretchen-quarterman-lcc-2012-10-09","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/waste-disposal-discussions-with-richard-raines-gretchen-quarterman-lcc-2012-10-09.html","title":{"rendered":"Waste disposal discussions with Richard Raines —Gretchen Quarterman @ LCC 2012-10-09"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\"Gretchen<\/a>\nWaste disposal issues in Lowndes County are more complex than one might think,\nand transparent processes could help citizens understand these stewardship\nissues, while helping the local government do its job.\n<\/p>\n

\nCommissioner Raines called me yesterday evening after I had left him\na voice mail and an e-mail letting him know that I had some\nquestions.\n<\/p>\n

\nI was particularly curious about the proposals\n\nin column “F”<\/a> which asked for:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nContractor(s) agrees to provide an independent proposal option to\naddress residential solid waste, bulky item, yard waste and\nrecyclable materials collection, transportation and disposal,\ncollection center management and related customer service, records,\nbilling and payment processing services for unincorporated Lowndes\nCounty residents.\n<\/p>\n

\nProposal \u201cF\u201d Pricing \u2014\n<\/p>\n

\nResidential solid waste, bulky item, yard waste and recyclable\nmaterials collection, transportation and disposal, collection\ncenter management and related customer service, records, billing\nand payment processing services.\n<\/p>\n

\n$______________ per month\/subscriber\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThis was an opportunity for the vendors to provide some option that\nthe county had not asked for but used their expertise in waste\ndisposal and offer a creative solution.\n<\/p>\n

\n\n\"Lowndes<\/a>\n\nThe prices in column “F”<\/a> ranged from $8.33 to $19.95 to “Negotiate”.\n<\/p>\n

\nCommissioner Raines briefly explained what had been submitted by\neach vendor and it became clear that there was not a creative\nwinning solution proposed there. In fact, submitting a “Negotiate\nRates and Program” is clearly a failure.\n<\/p>\n

\nWe then went on to discuss at length the whole solid waste disposal\nhistory, problems, options, and so on. Commissioner Raines stressed\nhis focus\n\n\n\n\"Richard<\/a>\non financial stewardship and getting the best deal for the\ncitizens of the county. I said that stewardship also included safety\nin the disposal process and making sure that people didn’t just\nthrow their trash on the side of the road. We also talked about\nrecycling and how that is also a stewardship issue and how it is\nimportant to many people.\n<\/p>\n

\nI had wondered about the possible billing options. Will the county\nbill, or the vendor, or will it be part of the unincorporated county\ntax bill, or something else? Commissioner Raines explained that\nGeorgia State Law requires solid waste disposal to be a user fee and\nnot a property tax. I wondered if the fee could be like a special\nlighting tax district except for special solid waste tax district\nfor households in the unincorporated area and Commissioner Raines\nsaid that wasn’t yet clear.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe one thing that surprised me the most was that Commissioner\nRaines said he got no calls or emails about the impending trash\nsituation. He said that clearly people knew that something would\nchange when the county sold cards for only six months and if they\nhad questions they should have called and asked and expressed their\nopinions before we got to the day of the vote.\n<\/p>\n

\nHere’s where I think transparent government comes in. Those in the\ngovernment know what’s going on, what the time frames are, why they\nare considering things at a certain time, and so on. Why not make\nthat information publically available? From the outside, we don’t\nknow what to ask, what issues are pending or particularly important\nor why the government does what it does.\n<\/p>\n

\nI had previously made an open records request for items related to\nsolid waste disposal and in the materials I received was a graph\nthat showed fees related to cost. It seemed that the gap was closing\nand if the fee for the pass was raised slightly then the gap would\nclose and all would be well. It turns out the cost in that graph was\nonly the tipping fees and not all the ancilary costs of waste\ndisposal (dumpsters, truck maintenance, fencing repairs, etc.) So,\nwithout this important piece of the picture, it wasn’t possible to\nunderstand why the county kept saying trash disposal was such a\nburdensome, costly service.\n<\/p>\n

\nNot every person is interested in every (or perhaps any) services\nthat the government offers, but I think that all citizens will have\nmore confidence in the government if it freely discloses what it is\ndoing, how and why.\n<\/p>\n

\nOur conversation was cordial and informative and I thank\nCommissioner Raines for taking the time to answer my many questions\nand discuss this important topic with me.\n<\/p>\n

\n-gretchen\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Waste disposal issues in Lowndes County are more complex than one might think, and transparent processes could help citizens understand these stewardship issues, while helping the local government do its job. Commissioner Raines called me yesterday evening after I had left him a voice mail and an e-mail letting him know that I had some […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[70,8,2,88,21,22,32,3,479],"tags":[1600,1588,8728,8701,8699,10,8702,91,12,7,8734,730,8711,8712,8715,4,1601,653,8700,8773,6,90],"class_list":["post-429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-georgia","category-government","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-planning","category-politics","category-pollution","category-transparency","category-trash","tag-8-october-2012","tag-9-october-2012","tag-ethics","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-gretchen-quarterman","tag-lake","tag-lcc","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-open-records","tag-planning","tag-politics","tag-pollution","tag-regular-session","tag-rfp","tag-richard-raines","tag-transparency","tag-trash","tag-valdosta","tag-work-session"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-6V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}