I know of very very few apartments that have the city transport their garbage to the landfill. The majority pay private companies to do it. More smoke and mirrors from city hall coming your way.

I wonder how much are taxes would drop if the mayor would learn to stay home, instead of traveling to china etc,What about the parking lot that the city payed for (John Majors gamming center). I hope the public remember this come election time.

Of course

Lunar, I to wonder if its not time to have the mayor, and all councillors hooked up to a polygraph, before they are allowed to "announce" anything to the public.

I am saving the utterances of the Manager of Financial Services for the City in a special file. When the predicted downturn in the economy finally arrives (beetle impact-empty houses) I will expect the rates for garbage pick up to drop like a stone!

Will this reduction happen? Prediction based on history: NO!

What goes up NEVER goes down...

NOTIBLE QUOTES:

SIR ISAAC NEWTON.... WHAT GOES UP, ALWAYS COMES DOWN.

GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRATE: WHAT GOES UP, NEVER COMES DOWN.

"It used to be we had a lot of empty homes and apartments, but the owners still paid the full amount to have the garbage from those sites picked up."

I can hardly wait for the 2006 census figures to come out. Then we will get a better feel of what is actually happening.

Right now we do not know, for instance, whether the apartment is occupied because a young adult has moved out of the house and into his/her own apartment and similar changes, or whether there are additional people coming to town. We also do not know how many have moved out of such a shared accommodation situation and completely moved out of town and some new people moved into town to take up an empty apartment rather than move into a shared accommodation.

A net increase in population is likely to increase the weight of garbage transferred.

It could also just be that as a result of increase of fuel costs over the last couple of years that people are not doing the self-operated recycling programs.

It could also be that people have bins now that they find are not quite as full as they thought they would be and stuff them full by adding goods they may have recycled before. I suspect switching to bins from bags may have changed patterns of what goes into curbside garbage pickup.

Really we ought to know whether people are creating more or less garbage. That is what it is all about. The purpose of the regions in the province taking over garbage storage was to reduce the amount of landfill. I would like to know how well we are doing. Looks like we are on a garbage growth cycle again and it is implied that is is due to an increase in population. We should know the reasons so that we can try to change behaviour patterns if we are increasing the amount going into landfills.

We must be the only major city left without curbside recycling pick-up.

Smaller trucks equals more dumps. Not factored in when they budgeted the new system. I suspect the tonage has not changed and that it is in fact a result of smaller trucks dumping more often. The regional land fill is taking the opportunity to increase their own costs and blame it on the transition between systems.City hall decides that excuss won't cut it with the public so fabricate the growing population theory. After hall city hall is never wrong when it comes to their own projections....

My family and I have been recyling for many years. Since the levy has gone in I have dumped my cans and paper into my garbage can. It is a small one and has never been filled but it will from now on.

Cheers

In this booming economy and full apartment era, I have been recycling cardboard, newspaper ,etc for many years. It would seem to me that my not always full garbage tin is the place for these now,since I am charged more and more for garbage pickup anyways. I will continue to save bottles and cans because I can get money back for them. If and when the city gets smart and introduces curbside pickup for blue boxes I will again recycle. I will also save fuel by not having to drive to the recycle site. Seems the latest buzz word for politicians is "green". I do believe it will be mine too. That is how to keep some of that green in my pocket and not theirs.

My wish for the next Council or rather "my impossible dream".

That one person on a low fixed income would gain a Council seat.

Impossible for sure:

1. They wouldn't have the money to run.
2. The rest of Council wouldn't listen to them if by some fluke they were successful in gaining a seat.

My pension went up by $2.34 per month. I suspect it isn't going to cover all the increases in City taxes.

I agree with some of the points made above.

(1) The City does not collect garbage from apartments. This garbage is collected by private companys. (As far as I know)

(2) With no increase in population there should be no increase in garbage. People leaving home and moving into their own rental houses take their garbage with them.

(3) Smaller trucks mean more trips to the landfill. I beleive that this is a big one that wasnt factored in when they made the **big** purchase, and they are now finding that their fuel costs are up, tipping fees are up, and maybe (overtime?)

Who knows, in any event another grande scheme gone awry.

Like I said before. some well meaning ninny should approach city hall and see if they can opt out of regular garbage pickup. And save all that dough. A trip to the transfer station with a pickup truck load fer $2 bucks would be cheaper. And if the city gives you any hassle about opting out, just bring out good ol' Trudeau's Charter of Rights which says you got a right to association. Maybe hizzoners tax increases and travel costs trump our Charter of Rights. Food fer thought.

Foo738, I see your still on board. Keep tuned . I'm mking progress on the taxpayer association.

Great news Kimbo. We need a taxpayers association. It will be good for Council, too, to have feedback.

We have different income levels in the City and decent folks trying to maintain homes on smaller incomes than those who serve on Council.

Feedback from all the different social strata in the City would be valuable to Council(if they would join the taxpayers association?)

I wish you the energy to continue.

Just wanted to clairfy the ambiguous "they" in my message. They being taxpayer's.

Foo