Editor, The News:
Before moving to Maple Ridge, we lived in Port Moody for about 20 years, starting in the early 1990s.
At that time, sanitation was municipal and cost about $200 per year.
A couple of years later, the first of three private contractors took over and the costs were fairly contained, although the contractors were a little less careful about stuff making it into the truck.
The private guys lasted about 10 years, then the city took over, again. Then the costs started to wind up.
Initially, there was a one-time fee for the bins – around $100 for a large one, which turned out to be a yearly rental.
Then there were the new trucks equipped to pick up the new bins. What do they cost?
And the new full-time driver, what does that cost?
We were on a Monday pickup schedule, so what happens on a holiday? No pickup.
To solve that problem the city added another new truck to the fleet with another full-time driver and went to a four-day pickup schedule. Guess where the costs went.
So the sanitation portion of our tax bill had doubled by this time. But it’s not over yet. Now the sanitation fee is going up yearly with all the other city expenses, so you can add another $25 to your taxes per year.
Still, we’re not done. Now the city has complete control over the service and you have no say but to pay. So let’s double the fee for anyone misguided enough to have a legal suite in their home. Oh, and you need another set of bins at the same cost as the first.
By the time we moved out of Port Moody, the sanitation portion of our tax bill was hitting $1,000 per year and I doubt it’s gone down since we moved.
You know that nothing this city does will ever get any cheaper, just more expensive. Everything the city touches goes up in price – equipment and the servicing, manpower and the benefits.
What can you do? Do you believe that this municipality has the capacity to efficiently run a sanitation service at a reasonable cost? I don’t. I’ve seen it before.
Barry Billas
Maple Ridge