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City looks to recycle old idea: Mayor wants more cooperation from county for curbside program.
(Kokomo Tribune Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Nov. 22--When former Kokomo Mayor Jim Trobaugh ended curbside recycling in 1999, he had his reasons.
Hopes the city might at least break even on recycling had fallen flat.
As more cities recycled, prices for recyclabes had fallen. The city's contract with Waste Management was ending, and the trash-hauling company wanted a 31 percent increase on the next contract.
City officials were spending $300,000 more annually to pay for curbside recycling than they would have paid Waste Management to simply haul everything to the landfill.
But that was nine years ago. Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight insists things have changed.
Goodnight is in search of a way to "re-brand" the City of Firsts without costing the taxpayers a ton of money.
He's scrapped former Mayor Matt McKillip's idea of investing in projects like flower medians and roundabouts.
Instead, Goodnight's looking to go green.
Wednesday, the city's Board of Public Works & Safety took one step in that direction by purchasing two trash trucks.
Instead of paying about $175,000 apiece of regular trucks, the board spent about 11 percent more and bought trucks with a divided rear bed.
If and when Goodnight rolls out a new version of curbside recycling, operators of the new trucks would be able to put regular trash in one compartment, and recyclables in another.
City development specialist Dave Galvin said the new trucks are just one piece of a much larger idea.
"Recycling alone does not move our city forward. Renewable energy does not solve our problems," Galvin said. "But it's all tied together ... the idea is to open new doors to the city for federal, and hopefully for state grants.
"And it also improves our image. It shows people we're not a Rust Belt city; it shows we're getting ready for the jobs of the 21st century."
As Goodnight has moved forward in his first year, green initiatives have somewhat taken a back seat to improving the city's financial situation.
Annexation and budget cutting have been the most prominent tasks Goodnight has undertaken, but he continues to press county officials for cooperation on a joint recycling initiative.
County support is particularly necessary because the Howard County commissioners basically control the $1 million-plus annual budget of the Howard County Recycling District.
Under the leadership of Howard County Commissioner Paul Raver, the recycling district board has consistently resisted efforts to reinstate some form of curbside recycling.
In 2002 and 2003, two succeeding directors of the recycling district tried to get the board to pass countywide curbside recycling, even if only as a pilot program.
The district board, comprised of three commissioners, the mayor, one representative each from the city and county councils and one Greentown representative, rejected the idea both times.
Under McKillip, no attempt was made to revive the idea, but Goodnight and Galvin say they believe new ideas have emerged in the nine years since Kokomo ditched curbside recycling.
Things came to a head between Goodnight, Raver and Howard County Commissioner Brad Bagwell last week, when the recycling district board voted on a new district director.
Goodnight, who has clashed repeatedly with current director Marla Vechey, thought Vechey was leaving at year's end to pursue a master's degree at Purdue University in West Lafayette.
At the board meeting, however, Bagwell, Raver, Greentown representative Joyce Higginbottom and city councilman Ralph Baer voted to allow Vechey and Mikki Jeffers, the district's program coordinator, to simply switch positions at year's end.
Goodnight argued unsuccessfully that since at least two (Raver and Bagwell) -- and up to five -- of the board members will be new in January, the decision should be postponed until then.
Raver and Bagwell argued that Jeffers and Vechey have moved the district forward in recycling efforts, and their leadership should be retained.
Goodnight and county councilman Joe Pencek both said they felt misled, and Goodnight said it was obvious he wasn't included in behind-the-scenes conversations on the district's future direction.
A three-member search committee -- Higginbottom, Raver and Baer -- advertised for the director's position, interviewed four candidates, and then made their recommendation to the full board. Baer had wanted two candidates to go before the board, but was outvoted by Raver and Higginbottom.
At the November board meeting, Goodnight pressed Vechey as to when she'd decided to try to stay on at the board.
"Maybe I was wrong, but I thought you were leaving," Goodnight said to Vechey. "You said you were going to school?"
"Yeah. I said I was going to school," Vechey replied.
"So your original intention was to stay on as the second ..." Goodnight said, before Vechey cut in.
"No, I just resigned as director, is all I did."
Repeated questions by Goodnight received no further clarification from Vechey at the meeting.
She later said she'd originally planned to leave, but balked at the prospect of sending her daughter to a new school district.
The tension evident during that meeting may not last past the new year.
"I don't see why we couldn't work together on that project," Jeffers said Friday. "The reason we're here is to eliminate waste going to the landfill, so I'm anxious to work with the mayor and the board."
Another subtext to the tension during recent board meetings has been resistance by county officials to using any of the recycling district's surplus -- more than $1 million -- to fund curbside recycling.
"It's been a lack of interest on the recycling district board to work with us on this," Goodnight said. "I think there's lots of options out there, but here we've been a year ... we've made it clear with [Vechey] we'd like to work on something."
Vechey said she tried to get a firm plan from the city before the district's 2009 budget hearings in July and was unsuccessful. City officials said she didn't return calls or respond to requests for information.
Baer, who tried to intercede to cut some of the tension at the November meeting, said Vechey did a good job as director, but added she'd been difficult to reach during the latter part of the year. Whether the new arrangement with Jeffers will work out remains to be seen, he said.
"I expressed to Marla she'll report to Mikki," Baer said.
And as for curbside recycling, Baer still remembers why it ended in 1999.
"If you give people a good enough reason to recycle, I have no objection to it," Baer said. "But to go back to the same old way ... we can't afford that anymore."
Recycling timeline:
1991: Under the Evan Bayh administration, the state Legislature mandates each county to establish a solid waste management district. A goal was set of reducing each county's landfill volume 50 percent by 2001.
1994: The city begins a small-scale curbside recycling program, and sets up drop-off bins at various locations. The newly formed Howard County Recycling District, a publicly funded city/county agency, takes over the drop-off bins the following year.
March 1995: The city of Kokomo contracts with Waste Management to pick up blue recycling bins once a week. In its first year, the program has 50 percent participation, and city officials come close to breaking even financially.
June 1998: Kokomo's curbside recycling participation rate has fallen to 28 percent, and the price of recyclables has fallen drastically. The program is now costing the city $200,000 a year.
December 1999: Kokomo Mayor Jim Trobaugh announces he'll end the curbside program at year's end, saying the city's taxpayers spent more than $300,000 subsidizing the program in the previous year. Participation continued to fall even after city officials warned in 1998 they would discontinue the program. Trobaugh adds more drop-off recycling bins to help make up for the loss of the program.
September 2002: A proposal to start a countywide curbside recycling plan fails to win support from a recycling district board dominated by Howard County officials. Howard County Commissioner Paul Raver indicates the idea should be put on the ballot for a referendum vote, saying "There's no point in going into a $1 million program with the amount of [public] interest shown so far." The referendum never happens.
November 2003: The recycling district board again tables the countywide curbside recycling idea, which proponents had envisioned paying for through a user fee. The city's experience with curbside recycling is cited as a reason not to pursue the project.
2001 to present: The county recycling district continues to report annual increases in the tonnage of recyclables brought to drop-off sites, and new collections are established for household hazardous wastes, electronics, school paper, medical waste (sharps) and mercury. The district has collected old tires since 1999.
To see more of the Kokomo Tribune or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.kokomotribune.com/.
Copyright (c) 2008, Kokomo Tribune, Ind.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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