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Hike trash fees for rich: Eadie

Councillor wants levies tied to assessments

By: Bartley Kives

Posted: 10/18/2011 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

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Coun. Ross Eadie wants a higher burden on higher-income homeowners. (TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES)

Garbage saga

What's up?

On Wednesday, council will vote on a garbage and recycling plan aimed at ending the City of Winnipeg's status as one of Canada's most wasteful municipalities. A trio of right-wing councillors opposes the expense and scope of the plan, while at least one left-wing councillor says a flat rate for garbage collection is unfair to working families.

What does this mean?

The plan is expected to pass, but it's rare to see a vote where Mayor Sam Katz will require a coalition of support from both ideological sides of city council. With three years left in what's expected to be Katz's final term, consensus-building may become more common as the mayor backs more legacy legislation -- and would-be mayoral candidates on council position themselves against Katz.

When it comes to taking out the trash, one city councillor wants the rich to pay.

The latest twist in Winnipeg's long-running garbage drama now has Mynarski Coun. Ross Eadie trying to amend the user-fee component of the city's Garbage & Recycling Master Plan by indexing the garbage-collection fee to the assessed value of the household in question.

On Wednesday, the rookie councillor with NDP ties will formally urge his council colleagues to reduce the annual fee to $25 a year for homes assessed at less than $200,000, keep the fee at $50 for homes assessed at $200,000 to $400,000 and boost it to $75 a year for homes assessed above $400,000.

Eadie's amendment comes as council will debate the plan, a waste-minimization strategy politicians ordered in an effort to divert more material from landfills and put an end to ad hoc changes to solid-waste collection.

The plan calls for automated rolling carts to replace garbage cans, blue boxes and autobins in every Winnipeg neighbourhood by late 2012, biweekly yard-waste collection during the warmer months next year, the construction of new bulk-waste dropoff centres by 2013 and a curbside organic waste-collection pilot project by 2014. It also calls for a $50 annual fee to cover residential garbage collection.

Eadie said his amendment is aimed at shifting the burden of a flat fee from Winnipeggers of modest means to wealthier households. If his amendment fails Wednesday -- as it likely will -- he said he will vote against the new waste-collection plan.

"This is a core service. All of this should be dealt with by property taxes," Eadie said Monday.

The Mynarski councillor is the fourth who's vowed to defeat the garbage plan. Last week, Conservative-affiliated Couns. Scott Fielding (St. James), Jeff Browaty (North Kildonan) and Paula Havixbeck (Charleswood) voted against the plan at council's executive policy committee, claiming it was too ambitious, too expensive or too activist.

The plan is expected to enjoy enough centrist support on Wednesday to pass through a council reduced to 15 sitting members by the resignation of former St. Vital councillor Gord Steeves in August. A spokesman for Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz said he has no intention to amend the plan before Wednesday's vote.

Council's agenda also includes the final approval for a $10-million loan guarantee for the developer of the Fort Rouge Yards as well as what's expected to be unanimous support for a $5-million contribution to the Longboat Development Corporation's new parkade north of Portage Avenue.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 18, 2011 B1

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