Forcing trash service  

Hi Carm..We have the same problem here and I am always talking to my neighbors about it. In Ft Lauderdale, we too are forced to have garbage pick up. The way the city gets around people not paying is they incorporate the charges. which by the way is 54.00 per month for two pick ups a week, with our water bill. So, if you dont pay, your water gets shut off. I hate it. First of all, I dont need two pick ups a week, one would be fine. I called City Hall to inquire about whether or not we had a choice of one pick up and a lesser charge and they laughed at me. No, you do not have a choice..My water bill here runs 100 per month. Only 24 dollars is for water usage and the rest is trash and taxes..its ridiculous and I can't afford it either but have no choice. If they shut your water off, then what and also you have a 50.00 reconnect fee. They have you by the short hairs as they say and there is not a damn thing you can do about it..j

For all i know, they should be paying you for your trash. It's wrong that you have to pay for the service what's more considering It's mandatory.. Good to know your neighbors are making a move against it. If it happened here, i'll be the one who'll pass a vote against it.

Your area can take you to court to make you pay the charges. I've seen it happen in my community about charges for road improvements. It usually forces the people here to sell their property.

I am wondering if a group of you can't get together to combine your small amounts of garbage. Instead of say, five of you having individual cans, the five of you group together to use one can and split the costs five ways? Bill and I live out in the country where we don't have trash pick up so we haul our own trash. I do a lot of recycling and we take our trash into town with us and drop it in trash cans in the area...like at Wal Mart, the gas stations etc. I also drop my trash at my sister's apartment complex where there is the huge dumpsters.

Does the community meetings follow Robert's Rules of Order? Is it specified in their by-laws or whatever they wrote as a guideline for their meetings? If so, they cannot legally change the way a vote is passed.

Call the people and be honest about your situation. Also see if you could form a trash co-op like I suggested. Usually there are people that don't generate a huge amount of trash that can't afford that kind of bill.

We have many options here. Bring our own garbage to the dump in our own truck, car, or van. Hire someone from a large company. Or hire somone from a small company. The dump is less than 4 miles away. Our garbage is only taken away once a week. We half to 2/3rds fill the trash can and we fill the recycling bucket.

Doesn't this come as taxation without representation?

Your trash should be based on how much you put out there. I can't imagine putting trash out 4 or 5 days a week. We don't make that much. There has to be a way around it. What about poor people with fixed incomes, minium wage people, the elderly, etc. ?You have from now until June 1 to protest. They should be encouraging people to reduce, reuse, and recycle, not have so much garbage that a truck needs to come every day. Talk about encouraging waste! The extra gas to run trucks many days. This sounds almost as riduculous as the sign for every curve.

We pay (with our house taxes) for the cost of garbage pick up. They come once a week where we live and pick up our trash. Another truck will come by with claws that picks up stuff sitting on the side of the road such as furniture, metal, and anything else big that the trash people don't pick up. I'm kinda upset that they don't give us a recycle box though. I wish they would. Maybe I need to call and request that they do that in our neighborhood. Nobody out here has a recycle bin.