Politics & Government
Woolsey Taking Matters Into Own Hands After Trash Vote
"Very few communities in New Hampshire subsidize businesses by free public collection of waste, and we need to discontinue this service."
After Hampton selectmen effectively took the full discontinuation of commercial trash pickups off the table, one member of the board has decided to put forth an effort to rally the public around reversing the board's decision.
Selectman Mary-Louise Woolsey will propose a private petitioned warrant article for town meeting next year in the hopes of ending a service she feels is unfair and is costing the town in more ways than just money.
Woolsey submitted an explanation for her decision in the following letter to the residents of Hampton, a letter which Woolsey e-mailed to Patch (read more about what caused this decision here):
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By now you will either have seen the Selectmen’s meeting of November 04, or read Nick Reid’s article in the November 08 edition of the HAMPTON UNION related to public vs. private pickup of commercial trash.
This issue has been a topic of discussion for many years, and the time has come to “take the bull by the horns” and find a cost effective solution. Having Public Works calculate how much to charge per business cart for a week, for 3 months, for 6 months, for a year - or paying to add electronic “microchips” to our vehicles to measure amounts of waste collected is time consuming and ridiculous - a mountain of town employee record keeping and paperwork billing and tracking down payments.
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For years the Town of Hampton has been picking up commercial waste by curbside collection free of charge. But when curbside recycling started, the burden on Public Works doubled, with extra waste vehicles added to our fleet, and we have reached a point where the Department now spends 40% to 50% of its time on picking up waste. Very few communities in New Hampshire subsidize businesses by free public collection of waste, and we need to discontinue this service.
Residential property owners do not derive revenue from their property. Commercial waste disposal is a business expense whether the business is at Hampton Beach, Rye Beach, Miami Beach, Chicago or LA.
Two other considerations :
our employees who now spend their time picking up mountains of waste in the summer need to be assigned to highway crews where their time can be spent more productively cleaning up the town. Exeter does not pick up commercial waste. Exeter has 15 men assigned to their highway crews to keep the town clean and well-maintained, this past summer we had 3 men available
a number of businesses in town have paid to dispose of their waste for years, with no reduction in their tax rate – The Galley Hatch, Hannaford, The Old Salt, Sanborns (to name a few). This is a fairness issue, if they can do it why not all of the other profit making businesses in town? Also, some business owners at the beach have other locations out of town and/or out of state, are they getting free pickup by the communities at their other locations? Just because we have been banging our heads on the wall all of these years, hoping for a different result, doesn’t mean we have to continue.
The time has come to reassess our waste collection priorities. I will have a private petition article drafted for submission to the March 2014 town warrant, and I will appreciate your support for this community effort.
Mary-Louise Woolsey 148 Little River Rd Hampton NH 03842
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