The Cobb Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday to table code amendment proposals pertaining to trash service.
But they disagreed on when, or even if, to bring proposals back for board consideration.
By a 4-1 vote, the commissioners approved tabling the amendments until January. Tuesday’s vote came before the first public hearing on code amendments, which will be voted on Sept. 27.
The dissenting vote was from Commissioner JoAnn Birrell of Northeast Cobb, who supported tabling the trash proposals but thinks doesn’t think they need to be brought back at all.
“I think the public has been loud and clear,” said Birrell, who’s up for re-election in November in a newly drawn District 3 that includes most of East Cobb.
“This should never have been brought to the board,” she said, without talking to the haulers and the public.”
She said she’s received 1,715 e-mails from citizens, with only two in support of a proposal that would have limited trash service to one hauler per commission district.
All five board members have publicly said that they don’t support the single-hauler provision, and held a work session Aug. 31 with private providers to hear their concerns.
There was another meeting last week with the haulers and county officials to continue hammering out solutions to trash service problems that Chairwoman Lisa Cupid said have been lingering for a decade.
“I don’t know that we need an ordinance to address this code at this time.”
Later, she said that the trash proposal “need to be removed completely. If it needs to come back, it can come back.”
Keli Gambrill of North Cobb agreed with Birrell, her fellow Republican.
“These are things that can be solved by the haulers without the county’s interference,” Gambrill said via telephone, attending the meeting remotely.
Citizens in unincorporated Cobb contract with private providers for trash service. But Cupid said the county has a role in resolving service issues some citizens have had with not getting service, or getting inconsistent service.
“This is a public health matter, when there are citizens not getting service,” Cupid said. Until now, “there has not been a prod to the private market to address these issues. There is a role for us to play in this matter.”
Commissioner Jerica Richardson of District 2 in East Cobb said that while tabling the amendments “doesn’t necessarily solve the problem” of inconsistent trash service, it’s “encouragement that the right kind of dialogue is happening to address this issue.”
After the vote, speakers at the public hearing also spoke out against the trash proposals, which included mandatory recycling.
“This amendment isn’t ready for game time,” East Cobb resident Debbie Fisher said, calling it an example of “government overreach.”
She said she found it ironic that county government is attempting to step in to dictate trash service when it “can’t mow the grass” in road medians. “That’s a problem. Limited government is always better.”
East Cobb resident Hill Wright, who started a website to galvanize opposition to the single-hauler proposal, acknowledged that while there are issues in some areas with trash service, “the county has proven that it is not the right entity to make it happen.”
Beyond the initial meetings with haulers, he said, “we need town halls,” and was critical of what he said was an initial attempt to “bypass the haulers and the public.”
One of those haulers, Brian Warren of Custom Disposal Service, thanked commissioners for tabling the code amendments. He said 75 percent of his company’s business is in Cobb, and he’s served on a task force in nearby municipality to help resolve trash issues.
He was responding to a question about how long such a process might take, and he said from previous experience that “within a six-month period we came up with a plan.”
He urged commissioners not to follow the lead of Gwinnett County, which went to a single-hauler format a decade ago, only to continue to have service problems.
“Cobb should be a county that others want to emulate,” he said. “We don’t need to emulate others with failed programs.”
Related:
- Cobb trash haulers tell county officials: ‘We can fix this’
- Birrell asks for Cobb to delay proposed trash service changes
- Proposed changes to Cobb trash service draw citizen opposition
- $1 billion in 2022 Cobb property tax bills issued; due Oct. 15
- Cobb settles lawsuit with Uber driver; agrees to pay $250K
- Cobb DOT to start Bill Murdock-Pine Road realignment
- East Piedmont Road resurfacing project continues
- East Cobb resurfacing projects OK’d with 2022 SPLOST funds
- Cobb commissioners adopt $1.2 billion fiscal year budget
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