BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Many Starke residents took advantage of a county solid waste collection site tucked just inside the city limits for years but are now barred access.
According to city commissioners who have heard the complaints, residents want to be able to dump there again. After multiple staff meetings, the city will take the request directly to county commissioners next month.
Bradford County imposed a solid waste collection assessment to help pay for the collection, transport and disposal of solid waste in the late 1980s and went more than 30 years without raising the fee. Seeing the need to do so last year, the fee increased 67%, including the residential fee, which increased from $75 to $125.
Starke residents do not pay the annual fee on their tax bills. Starke commissioners would have to agree to that. So, while Starke residents are county taxpayers, they are not funding the solid waste service at the same level as county residents.
They weren’t alone in taking advantage of the county’s dump sites, however. Disposal by noncounty residents at the Keystone Heights collection site was also noted when the fee increased.
To weed out disposal by nonpaying users, the solid waste sites implemented a sticker program at the end of last year. Disposal requires a sticker, and a sticker requires proof of payment.
Starke commissioners have repeatedly addressed the issue at meetings, requesting staff communicate with the county about this recent restriction. After multiple meetings, City Manager Drew Mullins recommended city and county commissioners meet to resolve the issue.
Starke contracts for garbage collection and disposal for its residents and businesses. By ordinance they should be paying for this service as part of their monthly utility bill and receiving pickup multiple times a week. According to City Commissioner Janice Mortimer, however, nearly 400 residents are not receiving pickup and now have nowhere to take their garbage.
According to Mullins, this is an oversight on the city’s part that staff is trying to rectify by identifying unserved residents and their 911 addresses. It is taking some time, he said, calling the task labor intensive.
“I’m still getting calls. I’m still getting people stopping me on the street, at church or in the store about this. This is very important to our citizens,” Mortimer said, asking Mullins to arrange a workshop date with the county commission.
She said city residents were being “saddled” with a cost that is not fair or equitable and the boards need to come up with an amicable solution.
“You know, garbage, it gets old, and it’s gets stinky. We all know, and this is really gotten quite bad,” she said.
County Public Works Director Jason Dodds confirmed he met with the city manager and clerk more than once and offered a solution that was ultimately rejected.
The county suggested the city provide the names of the underserved residents. The county would then provide a special form for those residents allowing them to provide their tax ID and location and purchase a windshield sticker for permission to use any of the county’s disposal sites. The cost would be the same as $125 as the assessment paid by county residents.
Dodds said the city never provided that information, and when he asked, he was told the city didn’t have the time, so the county moved forward with enforcing the sticker program as planned.
Now commissioners from both the city and county are set to meet and discuss a solution. The workshop has been set for Tuesday, May 7, at the courthouse following the county commission’s 9:30 a.m. meeting.
