The City of Houston Solid Waste Management Department (SWMD) services approximately 390,000 to over 423,000 households and small businesses, according to city records and reports. The department provides weekly garbage, yard waste, and curbside recycling, as well as monthly collection of tree and junk waste.
The five dollars a month would be for the first year; it would increase by $5 a month each year until it reached $25.00. At least that is the plan.
Assuming the maximum of 423,000 houses is used, that would bring in a grand total of $ 25,380,000 in the first year and $126,900,000 in the fifth year.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire is expected to propose a monthly fee for trash services as part of a plan to close a $174 million deficit in the budget he will present Tuesday, Council Member Tiffany D. Thomas confirmed Thursday.
The new fee would start at $5 per month for the first two years, then increase annually by $5 until it reaches $25 per month, she said. Five other sources briefed on the plan said they were given the same information.
Not sure what a $ 25 million reduction in a $174 million deficit will do, but it makes it look like the mayor is doing something. I have no problem with the fee, that is me. I just had to pay $200 to have some items hauled to the depository because I don’t want them sitting in front of my house for months. Like some houses have here in the neighborhood. Our neighborhood should not have to call our Council Member Pollard, who may pay to have the heavy trash hauled from his council budget. But it should not be like that. If the city is not going to pick up heavy trash, they need to tell us. If they do intend to send someone with heavy-duty trash trucks, they should notify us a few days in advance.
I could even agree that the city should start with $25 a month, a year, as that would put a dent in a deficit approaching $200 million.
We don’t need heavy trash pick up monthly; four times a year would be sufficient. But fine (ticket) those people who put heavy trash out when it shouldn’t be.
However, governments, being governments, will always find new, creative ways to spend that new money. So it would not surprise me to find that by the end of the fifth year, we would still be facing a $200 million deficit.
Back when there were fiscal conservatives, one could find some governments that were lean but efficient.
The days when President Kennedy stated, ” Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” are gone and may never return.
There are some events that are engraved in one’s mind; one such event occurred when I visited San Luis PotosÃ, Mexico. I stayed with an elderly woman who was related to my uncle’s wife. She lived in a home that had a dirt floor. Every morning, she would sweep the floor, then go outside to sweep the street in front of her house. I was young and stupid, and I asked her why she did it, since it was a dirt floor. She looked at me and said very calmly, just because we are poor does not mean we have to be filthy.
In the last sixty years, our country has gotten richer, but our souls have gotten poorer.
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