The Greensboro City Council passed two items related to ending loose leaf collection at the Tuesday, Jan. 2 meeting.
Both votes were 6-2 with Councilmembers Zack Matheny and Hugh Holston voting no. Councilmember Yvonne Johnson was absent.
The two items – one to approve a contract of $369,000 with Schaefer Plastics North America LLC to assemble and deliver 75,000 yard waste carts to residents of Greensboro and the second to approve borrowing $4.1 million to pay for the purchase of the yard waste carts – were discussed together, but voted on separately.
Matheny questioned Assistant City Manager Larry Davis about financial aspects of the limited obligation bonds that would be sold to borrow the $4.1 million and the cost of financing that debt. Davis said he didn’t have the figures for what the total cost of borrowing $4.1 million for 20 years would be.
Matheny asked for those figures and said, “I would love for you to send that to us, so that we as City Council would actually know the amount of money we are talking about.”
Matheny also questioned the purported savings that city staff asserts the city will realize from ending the loose leaf collection program, since the city doesn’t know the actual cost of borrowing the money to buy, assemble and deliver the yard waste carts.
Holston made the point that the city was not actually saving money but transferring the cost of leaf collection to the residents who will be required to buy paper bags for their leaves at about 50 cents a bag.
A number of residents spoke against ending the loose leaf collection program citing the time, expense and additional labor that would be involved in placing the massive amount of leaves the trees in the city produce into paper bags.
It was something of a surprise for so many people to speak against ending the loose leaf collection program when there was so little opposition in April when the City Council discussed ending loose leaf collection and all but one councilmember supported making a switch. There was also little opposition in August when the City Council voted to end loose leaf collection at the end of the 2023-2024 leaf season and eliminate plastic bags for yard waste on March 1, 2024.
I’m pretty sure your readers knew and could smell the lies from this council. This snafu was to save money….lmao! So now, duh, you have to finance it. What a brain trust we have. Well taxpayers, keep on voting they way you have been. The results are amazing!
Why is Greensboro City government so blank when it comes to planning.. They planned doing away with leave, debri pick up with no plan obviously about these containers. They’ve thrown money after this and that, have increased property taxes in the midst of skyrocketing property valuations, makes no sense, they can’t expect the citizens of Greensboro to keep funding their inability to save and plan. But must say the voters put them in and now the voters will pay more for it. ridiculous
So what was the final vote on both issues
After getting an additional 30% each year after the reevaluation of property the city should already have enough money to implement a new way to pick up yard waste if they had not squandered the money.
This is a perfect example of people who have no sense of responsibility being in a position to spend others peoples money.
Will the citizens have to go in debt to purchase their own equipment to shred, bag and transport the leaves of the trees that former city governments advertised as a very green city just a few years ago. Will there be a reduction in taxes be instituted since services are being reduced? How will older people with limited abilities be able to get the leaves in those paper bags. Have any counsel members ever tried to stuff oak leaves into a paper bag?
What will happen if the leaves are raked into the street this fall and just let left there? Will the citizens be fined if they do not comply with this new set of procedures?
What a disgusting situation the citizens face. The citizens were happy with the service the way it was. This deal was kept under wraps and is being forced upon the citizens. We have no recourse.
They will just not give up to this stupid costly idea. It does not make sense and it is what this city council is about. STUPID AND SHORT SIGHTED TO LOOK LIKE THEY ARE DOING SOMETHING WHILE ALL THE TIME MAKING IT MORE DIFFICULT ON THE TAXPAYERS.
These new plastic “leaf carts” will not last 20 years but taxpayers will still be paying on the bonds. Talk about “kicking the can down the road”.
No kidding! Twenty year financing for plastic roll out cans? Total nonsense. Plus, they are planning to buy five new trucks to dump the leaves. I guess we’ll borrow money for that too! Would Zack or Hugh please ask our City manager where all the new tax increase money went?
… Of course they did !
The citizens be damned !
Greensboro is not a well-run city. This includes the City Council, the manager, and the city attorney, who reports to City Council. This is one time the baby should be thrown out with the bathwater.
I will be buying a burn barrel from a farm supply and not paper bags from the city.
GPD is 190 officers short, I had a car stolen from my carport last week and it will be 3 months before the results of fingerprinting will be available. In my opinion the Greensboro City Council could focus their efforts on more important issues facing our city.
Absolutely. Focus on core services: police, fire, water/sewer, waste pickup, streets and other infrastructure.
Our city council members that voted yes are all financial idiots. Who in there right mind spends money on a product that is depreciating that does not want to know what the actual cost is going to be unless you really don’t care how much of the tax payers money you are spending. I’m assuming that all these council members make payments on their cars for 7 years and never ask how much the car is really going to cost them. We are up the creek without a paddle and our taxes are going to go through the roof in the future with these kind of idiots running our city
Well said! The City Manager should be advising the City Council but, alas, the City Manager is too busy with DEI and hiring more worthless people for the payroll. No wonder the city must borrow money for yard waste cans that will need replacing before the loan is paid off.
What about buying all the new trucks to pick up said financed bins…those trucks Will have to run 5 days a week for most of the year…idiots we have downtown.
It is time to end off year election of the City Council and possibly get more informed people to the poles.
No more off year election for all locale entities.
” Stupid is as Stupid does!” So many examples, as mentioned in above comments