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Mayor Says City Might Not Need Garbage Fee
posted (February 21, 2013)
And while the city is flush with cash for the paving of streets - it's borrowed money, and they have to generate revenue to repay their bond. A large part of the revenue to service the bond is supposed to come from the much vaunted residential garbage tax - ten of twelve dollars monthly which city residents would be required to pay. But the bond has been floated, and the tax hasn't been implemented. Today the mayor told us that with the revenue his council is raking in from increased enforcement, they might not need the garbage tax - or at least not yet:..

Mayor Darrell Bradley
"The issue with the residential garbage fee is something that we are continuing to work on. This is something that has been in the news. We've made it public; we've talk about it at several public consultations/meetings that the City Council has. Whenever you are talking about a new tax it's something by necessity which has to be dealt with very carefully because we want to ensure that there is buy-in from the residence. What we are doing right now is that we are seeing if we can meet out full repayment commitments without it. we are trying to see if we can maneuver in such a way that we can meet our commitments without streets works without it. All indications are that this is not possible and this will be a reality in the very near future."

Jules Vasquez
"However when we spoke last year in your office in January you told me it was a matter of some urgency and that in fact you were going under water because you have to make your payments to bond holders and you aren't receiving the revenue stream that you had expected from the garbage tax."

Mayor Darrell Bradley
"I don't recall what I said in January. But if that was what I said I want rephrase from that a little bit because the financial position of the Council has improved. We've put in place measures, for example the issue with drivers' license - we've put in place a series of mechanism to increase our collections and we have notice that those things are performing. We are collecting on a lot of arrears of property taxes. Our trade licenses are being more efficient when we are dealing with people at the market and we want to ensure that those things we exhaust those remedies before we go to the public and say that well we need to collect more taxes from you."

The garbage tax would be tacked unto your water bill - and presently the council is reconciling the list of residential dwellings against the list of water installations.

We'll have more from the mayor later as he explains the grand plan for BTL park.

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