In One Insanely Misguided Stroke, Bizarro Nutter Returns And Re-Ignites The Decades-Dormant Hefty/Wimpy Debate
This morning, we woke up to this missive in the inbox from a dear reader:
heard on the radio today that nutter is going to scrap the $5/week idea and have us buy special trashbags from a special vendor. is he insane? at least if you charged $5/week to every house regardless of trash pickup or not, most people would be forced to comply. just like most people are forced to pay their water bill.
but i’m not driving all over town to get special trash bags. i want my hefty bags!
At first, we thought this was some cast-off, brainstorming suggestion The Dude might have floated in an interview somewhere. But no. This is something that is actually being very seriously considered. Here’s deputy mayor Rina Cutler:
“We will have two size bags, so a smaller bag, say a 15-gallon bag, will be a dollar, and a 30 gallon bag will be two dollars. You can put out twenty of them if you want to pay for twenty bags of trash, you can put out one.”
Notice the use of “will” and not “would” here — and we can’t help but wonder if this will be the topic of today’s just-announced “major announcement” by Mayor Michael Nutter at City Hall at 2PM today. Of all the craziness we’ve heard in the Nutter Admin’s (mostly valiant but sometimes utterly screwy) mad drive to raise cash for the City, this has got to be the goofiest and most implausible. Why? Much like we asked regarding the other trash fee and the go-to-jail fee, um, have you met us?
KYW1060: Hefty, Hefty, Hefty/Crazy, Man, Crazy!
March 5th, 2009 at 10:57 am
hate to say it, dudes, but it’s this or the libraries (or police, or fire, or health services…). at some point, they’re going to pick something to charge for/cut. and trash charging seems insane (though lots of other places do it…I know, I know, we’re Philly), but is it better or worse than losing the Fishtown/whatever branch of the library? sayin’.
March 5th, 2009 at 11:01 am
I went through this as an undergrad and it was painful (try getting a bunch of 20 year olds to agree to spend their last $5 on special trashbags). It ended up causing many local companies to practically hire dumpster police to keep everyone from trying to get rid of their trash for ‘free.’
March 5th, 2009 at 11:09 am
for the record, i’m ok with paying for shit i use, like trash removal. what i’m not ok with is paying for shit that everyone else -isn’t- going to pay for, causing my neighborhood to end up more junked up than it already is. i keep a trash can outside my door, because there isn’t one on our street, and it is constantly overflowing. i’m ok with this, because its better than having it all on the sidewalk. but i’m not going to fucking pay extra to throw away the city’s garbage for them. i’ll take the can back inside, and my sidewalk will get covered in trash again. how does that make sense?
March 5th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Yeah, this will go from being a Streets dept. problem to a Health and Human Services problem pretty quickly.
March 5th, 2009 at 11:39 am
There will be counterfeit bags coming out of Shanghai in less than two weeks. My guess is they cost .20 for the small and .35 for the large.
March 5th, 2009 at 11:42 am
I’d rather pay the $5 flat fee.
But how do you enforce that? You think the trash collectors will have a list of people who didn’t pay? And they’ll check off the list as we go?
Any solution will be painful.
March 5th, 2009 at 11:45 am
This will not bode well for my neighborhood. Illegal dumping is already rampant, this is going to make it absolutely unmanageable. At least for now most of the dumping is stuff that doesn’t smell, but we can expect that to change.
In other news, Philadelphia’s stray cat population is gearing up for a feast.
fuck this all.
March 5th, 2009 at 11:58 am
There are a lot of people who routinely throw trash on the streets of their own neighborhoods, even in front of their own houses. Why would anyone believe that they’d buy special trash bags?
March 5th, 2009 at 11:59 am
I can only hope that this is yet another ploy by the administration to get public opinion on their side before Nutter asks for changes/give backs in the union contracts.
I also dream that the big announcement is property tax reform (be it full valuation or LVT).
March 5th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
They were doing this in Chicago for the past 16 years with recycling bags. Some grocery stores and corner stores carried the “Blue Bags” and only these were accepted for recycling. The bags were then thrown in with the regular trash.
This led to diminished recycling as people tended not to pay for these, and would just throw out the recyclables. Also Mayor Daley was busy with co-mingling, and only about 10% of it was actually getting recycled.
Municipal reinventions of the waste disposal wheel seem to be a dime a dozen, and worth even less when it comes to success rates.
Last May, Chicago citizens finally managed to convince the Mayor’s office to get a clue. I think Nutter should take a cue from the failure of Chicago’s pay to pail and leave it the hell alone.
March 5th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
i’ll just throw trash bags into my trunk and throw them out in the dumpster behind my office (thats outside the city)
March 5th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
I can’t wait to wake up and find a pile of trash in front of my door, bags stolen.
March 5th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Why make things so complicated? We’re going to pay up somehow. Just raise our taxes and get on with it.
March 5th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
jmyers is making the reasonable argument here. Raise our taxes or halt slated tax cuts. This is what the city allegedly learned from all its workshop meetings the past month, right?
March 5th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
I’d prefer not to have to go down this road at all, but if we have to, a true pay as you throw program such as this is better than a $5 flat fee. The flat fee would do nothing except raise money, but pay as you throw incentivizes trash reduction and recycling- both good things. The key is doing it in such a way that DOESN’T lead to short dumping.
I’m sorry Philly- but you have got to get over your issues with trash. I don’t know what it is, but people here have such an odd relationship with waste- short dumping, littering, putting shit out in front of your neighbors or in public cans for no good reason. If generally normal, progressive folks like those at Philebrity freak this hard, you have to wonder what is up with it?
March 5th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
mcknappers, you’re oversimplifying. If I thought for one hot second that even a quarter of the people in my immediate area would participate correctly, I wouldn’t be having a shitfit.
Fact is, though, I will have to live with it and I’m not the only one. The city will continue not to give a shit and quality of life will decline further.
It’s easy to say “Philly needs to get over it” but how? This city needs easier and more abundant opportunities to legally get rid of trash, not fewer.
March 5th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
This sort of program is called “Pay as You Throw” or PAYT and despite the issues that people raise, it does seem work see:
http://americancityandcounty.com/mag/government_payasyouthrow_payoff/
http://www.p2pays.org/ref/23/22959.htm
http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/tools/payt/index.htm
Notable cities who use it: Portland, Austin , San Jose
I propose that the people who will throw their trash in the street will do so either way. Of course it depends on the fee charged, but I also don’t think people will be stealing bags. Also, this would give businesses a cheap advertising gimmick. “Come spend $100 and get X free philly trash bags”. It will also reduce the total amount of garbage that’s thrown away, and increase recycling. If the mayor would also institute a composting program of some sort and educate people how that can be used, then I think we can be well on our way to cutting the cost of municipal trash collection in the city.
On a side note, raising the wage tax may not be fair for non-residents as they don’t use Philadelphia’s trash system. Also, it would in no way increase recycling or reduce general waste.
I’ve had serious doubts about Nutter ever since the library budget cuts were announced, but he’s seriously been putting on a good performance over the last few months. I really think he wants to get reelected, and to do that, he knows he can’t piss everyone off. On the other hand he can’t, not balance the budget, due to state legislation, a situation over which he has little sway. So he’s stuck and I am starting to get the feeling that he’s trying to come up with the most sensible solutions to the issues this city faces. Street got lucky because he was the mayor during a debt fueled economic boom, I think it would be an unmitigated disaster if he were here now.
March 5th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
I’m with jmyers. Add a mandatory $260 a year to my property taxes and stop wasting time (that we pay you for) on this crap.
March 5th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
I kinda agree with jmyers too.
maybe this bag idea is Nutter’s way of making the flat $5 look more palatable in comparison.
We already lock up our trash cans and recycling bins — can I lock up my fancy new plastic bag to keep my bike-parts dealing neighbor with the 453 weekly bags of trash away from it?
March 5th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
I re-thought it. I am fine with pay as you throw.
We had to buy special bags in college (easily obtainable at all grocery stores) and it was no big deal. People will adapt.
Do it.
March 5th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
“maybe this bag idea is Nutter’s way of making the flat $5 look more palatable in comparison.”
I agree, cb. This is Nutter’s modus operandi. Introduce a ridiculous idea to make the first idea easier to swallow. That attitude showed up time and time again throughout the library debate. I really don’t like this guy.
Your constituents would rather you raise our taxes then cut programs and institute all this BS. I think that’s a pretty amazing thing. Move on with it.
March 5th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
From the poster above “Your constituents would rather you raise our taxes then cut programs and institute all this BS. I think that’s a pretty amazing thing. Move on with it.”
Uh what? We are already the highest taxed city in the country. The Dude needs to streamline city hall, not raise taxes. So many boneheads freaked out over the potential library closings but could not listen to the Dude and his administrations very rational reasons behind the (closings).
Now we pay for it.
March 5th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Patricio, there were RATIONAL reasons behind the closings? Oh please. Are you on Nutter’s or Siobhan Reardon’s staff? Oh, I don’t know, because stifling the intellectual heritage and literacy of our city sounds like a GREAT IDEA!
And where am I getting the fact that most citizens would rather see their taxes increased? look at the results of the four city budget workshops on WHYY’s It’s Our City blog: http://whyy.org/blogs/itsourcity/.
March 5th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
And by the way Patricio, those people you call “boneheads” were the poor and disenfranchised who were seeing many of their library branches potentially closed. Get off your high horse.
March 5th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
@Patricio
Chicago is the highest taxed city in the nation, I believe. Their sales tax alone is 10.2%.
March 5th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
I’m hearing rumors that they’re talking about shutting down the Horticultural Center in Fairmount Park. Aloe plant, anyone?
March 5th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Meanwhile there were two fires in South Philly yesterday. In the one involving an illegal electrical hook up, and mother and small child died. The other a home was destroyed. Inqy/DN seems kinda limp in aggressively asking the question, but they do get bystanders at the scene to chime in with “I wonder if the cuts to the fire dept have anything to do with the severity of the incident.” If you know a cop, firefighter, EMT, first responder etc., ask them about any given fire since January they’ll tell you straight that there were 2-3 fire response vehicles that could have got there faster than the equipment that did show up to prevent the tragedy from becoming a full blown disaster (let’s parenthetically mention that Philly’s ambulance response time has been laughable for years).
Notice how these fires are generally in poor neighborhoods? Oh, but hey, “we” “saved the libraries.” Guess they’re fireproof or something.
If you live or work in the city, you really ought to support a taxation plan that’ll allow the city to pay for itself.
Patricio, how much does “city hall” as is cost in the city budget? I really don’t know, and am curious what parts of city hall would be on the chopping block in the Patricio administration. You’re older than Larry West, right?
March 5th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Sure, there are some unnecessary expenses in City Hall. And those should most certainly be cut. if I can find a link, I will be sure to post.
C the Impaler, great points, for sure. And this is the kind of stuff that everyday Philly residents clamored for at the city budget workshops to not be cut. Sure, our taxes are high. I grimace everytime I look at my earnings vs. what I actually get on pay day. But in the end, as cheesy as it sounds, I love Philly, and don’t want my city to fall even more into ruin. I think it’s pretty awesome when residents feel so strongly about their neighborhoods that they too would sacrifice a few dollars more for the good of the city.
But what Nutter SHOULD do is demand back taxes owed to the city, put the tax abatement program on hold until we clear the recession, and send an invoice to those scumbag Eagles.
March 5th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
To Philatrash, if I’m a business owner (small or big), why would I start or relocate my business to Philadelphia? If I’m a business owner I’m going to look at Philadelphia’s taxes and totallly back the fuck up. I’m sure the crowd at the PBS thingy are going to say they would rather pay more in taxes then have services cut. In all honesty its like when people say they care about the environment but when they get in the voting booth its the last concern they have when they pull the lever. I’m not completely anti-tax, I’m only seriously against the wage tax and the BPT.
For a second there you made me regret saying “bonehead” but then I read your little smug response about the rational reasons for the proposed closures. I’m not going to waste my time on someone who is going to be so arbitrary. Instead you should’ve listened to Mark-Allan Hughes and Andrew Altman give public (you know…in front of the public)speeches for the reasoning behind it.
C., I agree about City Hall but how about I up the ante and say they consolidate space in City Hall and put additional office space up for the private sector.
Oh yeah and I’ve got a good 3 years over Larry.
March 5th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
amen, Patricio. and for those interested, here’s info on the city budget forums, where they lay out exactly the cuts being looked at: http://www.gse.upenn.edu/node/725
(go to “Budget worksheet”, all the way at the bottom; it’s a PDF)
March 6th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Patricio, I’m against the BPT as much as you are. I’m particularly angry over the fact that the city revenue department wants to start taxing the “unrelated business income” of nonprofits, so pretty much they want to supercede the guidelines that the IRS has already defined. So a small theater that sells twelve candy bars at intermission as a service to their patrons will have to calculate taxes on this. Or a low-income housing agency will have to start ponying up. The point is, the city is looking in all the wrong places instead of going to the obvious: the Eagles, tax delinquents, suspending the tax abatement program, and other creative ways of doing business.
All I’m trying to say is that Stubborn Nutter could have trimmed the fat elsewhere. I did hear all sides of the library argument, so don’t condescend me back like I’m some one-sided ignorant idealist. I really do care very deeply about my city and my opinions don’t just drop at a moment’s notice. Was there an argument there on the pro-library side? Of course. But the whole thing just looked like a PR nightmare – especially when the main branch is spending tens of millions to spruce up. I have my opinion, you have yours.