Not What I Wanted

It took at least two meetings to fill each seat on Council. Residents did not come forward. If residents do not want to come forward than sitting members of Council can only vote for the residents that do want to sit on Council.

As for the members of Council I cannot make them do their jobs. I can only hope that they do their homework and make educated decisions in the best interests of the Village. If they only want to show up the night of the Council meeting and look at the information on the agenda for the first time and then vote on them then I pity them and the Village. The Members of Council should earn their pay and do their homework.

As to your claim of picking up the garbage for Mrs. Russolillo's business, was it outside the Village? Was it from their home? What is the issue if the garbage was picked up from their home? There are other self-employed residents in the Village that have the contracted garbage hauler remove their home garbage and most likely that of their businesses.

I fail to see the issue. Each residence pays for the garbage to be picked up. There is no limitation on the amount of garbage that can be picked up. If Mrs. Russolillo worked out of her home than I see no issue. Even if she had a location outside of the Village and brought it here to be picked up it still does not matter. Each residence paid for their garbage pickup. You make seem like a crime. Anyone running a business would look for ways to save money and cut expenses. Makes good business sense.

It is a shame that this current council has adopted some of the ways of the former councils. I am disappointed in the current council and I was disappointed in the former council. The former council was a vindictive group that wanted to get even. The current council just seems lazy. Each is bad in different ways.

What do I want? I want a Council that educates themselves about an issue and makes decisions in the best interests of the Village. I do not want someone who just shows up, collects a check, and votes on something that they did not research.

This garbage contract could have been handled better. I blame the Council for not researching other options or allowing the Mayor to only present onside. They voted on the contract. They had a chance to ask questions and seek input from the residents. It appears that they chose to do nothing. Again I am disappointed in the members of our Village's administration.

More Information Is Better

The Village did a poor job in communicating with the residents. Poor planning on the Village's part. I had been telling them since last November that the contract was coming due and yet they waited to hold a special meeting two weeks before the current contract expired.

Not having the Messenger attending meetings does not help either. With the Council and Mayor not sending out newsletters communication just gets worse.

I sent emails to the members of Council last year while on Council that they we needed to look into other options and get the input from the residents about eliminating curbside recycling and having a central collection location. They did nothing. It is unfortunate that the Council did not want to look into other options.

Upper Arlington's Plan

Below is a link to a pdf of the garbage collection services for Upper Arlington.

http://www.ua-ohio.net/resservices/cityservices/waste.pdf

UA offers free curbside recycling and charges residents $2.50 per bag of garbage or yard waste. If something similiar had been put in place for Valleyview you could have 6 bags of garbage a month before you exceed the price we are currently paying. But it you only made a bag of garbage a week you bill would only be $10 for the month.

Some people might find a savings, but relatively speaking it is cheap. I do not know the break down as to how much the recycling portion is of the monthly bill.

I know that while I was on Council we were looking at the Village paying for a quarter's pickup for the residents or paying for the recycling portion. I have not heard anything else about that since I have left the Council so it seems that the current Council may not be taking action on it. It would be a way to give back to the residents.

For the Village to pay one quarter's worth of garbage collection in the Village it would cost approximately $14,500. It would cost approximately $4,000 for the year for the Village to pay the recycling portion of the bill. I know that there was some money available in the budget. In the past the Village paid $10,000 towards the garbage collection, but that was stopped when the Village ran into financial problems.

It was always hoped that the Village would again be subsidizing the garabage collection again. Hopefully Council is looking into this.