you don't have to fight city hall. you can join them.

People of Philadelphia may know this, but if you are an out-of-towner, you probably don't.  Our Mayor is proposing a few tax hikes.  One of them is a $300 annual fee (read:tax) for garbage collection.  No, we don't pay to have our garbage collected here.  Yes, most places in the Free World do.  Our taxes are so low here, that you would probably puke in your pants if I told you what my annual property taxes are. 

My friend Lauren works for the Mayor, and the Mayor asked her to ask people (and she asked me) to write a Letter to the Editor on the topic of supporting the trash fee (if, in fact, I do support the trash fee).

Well, sure.  I love taxes.  Tax the shit out of me if you'll make my life better.  I'm all about quality of living and paying for a better today and a more promising tomorrow.  Please.  

But I can't just write a LttE.  I have the Mayor's ear on an issue that I've been struggling with big time in real life but haven't been burdening you guys because you probably don't want to hear about me going to Garbage Court and Recycling Forums and Trash Tribunals and garbage garbage garbage.  

So in the Spirit of Me and the Way I Write (can you believe that Lauren actually wanted me to use "facts" and "figures" in this thing?  ha, Lauren, ha.), I am presenting to you my Letter Plea to the Editor Mayor:


It's no secret that one of the luxuries of owning a home in the City of Philadelphia is relatively low property taxes.  So when I heard that there was a proposed "Trash Tax" my gut reaction was, "I'm okay with that.  That is fair".  But as I give it some thought, there are conditions. 

I'm okay with that if our trash is collected with respect.  If the men and women who collect our trash, collect it with respect to our streets and with respect to our properties.  I know that some residents do not tie up their bags well.  And some residents use shopping bags or old cardboard boxes rather than trash bags.  But it seems that the amount of trash that is strewn over our streets after a garbage truck has traveled down it is double that of the amount of trash on a normal day.  It seems that the trash collectors are in such a hurry to get the route finished that they do so with total disregard to our neighborhoods.  I've watched them spill entire bags of trash, shrug their shoulders and move to the next home.  Recycling collectors have spilled bins by accident and left the broken glass and errant papers for the residents to clean up.  Or ignore.  I am not comfortable paying for this type of negligence.

I was recently in garbage court.  I was fined because I was accused of not separating my recyclables from my trash.  It's true.  I had a bag that contained bottles and papers mixed with regular trash.  But it was not trash from my home, it was trash I collected from my street and trash that my neighbors threw in the bag that I set near my front steps.  I did not separate the trash, which included dog droppings, and rather than paying the fine I requested a hearing to explain what I was aiming to do.  Rather than a hearing notice, I received a penalty fine that was equal to double the original fine.  I paid it instead of fighting it.  A few months later on a weekend, my son and I cleaned up our street.  I did not want to bring the bags through my house to keep in the yard until trash day, so I kept them against the side of the house.  I was fined for setting my trash out too early.  I requested and received a hearing for this violation.  I did not want to fight the fine.  I deserved it.  I knew I broke a rule, but I wanted to speak to a hearing officer and ask what I could do to make my neighborhood a cleaner place.  The answer?  Not much. 

If we are charged a fee, and we are continued to be fined, we need to start seeing the results.  I want them to be be used for increased street cleaning on ALL Philadelphia blocks.  We need trash cans that are emptied regularly on ALL Philadelphia blocks, not just downtown and other desirable neighborhoods.  I was punished because I cleaned up my neighborhood.  That is unacceptable.  I was told in court that it is a health hazard for me to keep garbage bags in front of my house.  I feel that it is a health hazard to allow my four year old son to play on a street littered with animal droppings, dead cockroaches, broken glass, discarded drug baggies, cigarette butts, disintegrating newspapers, and other trash. 

Most street trash in most neighborhoods isn't soda bottles, or chip bags, or cigarette boxes.  It's pizza shop menus and free newspapers and door to door political and business flyers that are placed in our front railings and tossed on our doorsteps.  No one cares to check if there is anyone living in the houses that are being targeted.  Some houses have months worth of papers on the steps. 
I propose that the City begins fining the businesses that loosely fasten their ads and menus to our banisters and carelessly toss the newspapers and weekly packets of advertisements on our steps.  Require that the distributors slip them in our front doors or mail slots.  If they do not do this, fine them.  Set up a system that would make it easy for a citizen to report an offender.  Give ticketing authority to Parking Officers, Police Officers, and Waste Management Officers.  It's easy to figure out who the perpetrator is.  The name and address is right on the flier.  Use that fine to pay for a team of workers to remove dog droppings and other waste from our sidewalks and empty trashcans on a regular basis.  Or better yet, put the "garbage police" on double duty.  While they are walking around shaking our trash bags and slipping fine notices through our doors, have them cleaning up our streets and sidewalks.  (Please make sure that they separate the recyclables at the end of the shift!) 

So go ahead and raise our taxes.  Charge us for garbage collection just like they do everywhere else .  Just make sure we get a kickback.