January 23, 2020 Open House
City of Anoka
January 23, 2020 Open House Meeting
Green Haven Golf Course & Event Center was where the City Council was going to receive public input, or as the mayor and city council members said at previous council meetings, "educate" the public.
All three event center rooms were reserved for an anticipated standing room only crowd. They anticipated a crowd rivaling that of 2015 when the last open house was held on Government Managed Trash Collection.
Mayor Phil Rice said, "We have to encourage people, both that are opposed and want the freedom to choose and those that believe that this is the right thing to do and go single hauler." (see 10/28/19 city council meeting)
Also unknown to attendees, the PowerPoint presentation created by lower level staff in December 2019 had been altered by City manager Greg Lee to support Government Managed Trash Collection and single hauler. (see Altered Open House PowerPoint Presentation)
Approximately nine months after the mayor and city council members said the decision has been made to institute Government Managed Trash Collection and a single hauler, an open house meeting was called for purposes of making it look like the mayor & city council wanted to hear from the people.
In many respects, there was no reason for anyone to attend the 2020 open house. The decision to have one hauler for the city had already been made. There was no panel of industry professionals to answer questions like in 2015. The city council decided to keep the haulers in the dark and out of the process. In addition, unlike 2015, the city was even too cheap to pass out complimentary cookies.
In 2015, all three event center rooms were full, standing room only in the back. An estimated 250 residents were in attendance. Panelists answered questions for over an hour.
The result in 2020? Hardly anyone attended. The room was mostly empty. The third Event Center room was closed off. There were more chairs than attendees. About a third in attendance were city employees or cable TV staff.
It is estimated that approximately 20 homeowners were in attendance, and many were husband and wife couples. At best, maybe 15 residential properties were represented.
Only Councilmember Elizabeth Barnett and Councilmember Erik Skogquist felt it worthy of their time to attend.
January 23, 2020 Open House Meeting
Green Haven Golf Course & Event Center was where the City Council was going to receive public input, or as the mayor and city council members said at previous council meetings, "educate" the public.
All three event center rooms were reserved for an anticipated standing room only crowd. They anticipated a crowd rivaling that of 2015 when the last open house was held on Government Managed Trash Collection.
Mayor Phil Rice said, "We have to encourage people, both that are opposed and want the freedom to choose and those that believe that this is the right thing to do and go single hauler." (see 10/28/19 city council meeting)
Also unknown to attendees, the PowerPoint presentation created by lower level staff in December 2019 had been altered by City manager Greg Lee to support Government Managed Trash Collection and single hauler. (see Altered Open House PowerPoint Presentation)
Approximately nine months after the mayor and city council members said the decision has been made to institute Government Managed Trash Collection and a single hauler, an open house meeting was called for purposes of making it look like the mayor & city council wanted to hear from the people.
In many respects, there was no reason for anyone to attend the 2020 open house. The decision to have one hauler for the city had already been made. There was no panel of industry professionals to answer questions like in 2015. The city council decided to keep the haulers in the dark and out of the process. In addition, unlike 2015, the city was even too cheap to pass out complimentary cookies.
In 2015, all three event center rooms were full, standing room only in the back. An estimated 250 residents were in attendance. Panelists answered questions for over an hour.
The result in 2020? Hardly anyone attended. The room was mostly empty. The third Event Center room was closed off. There were more chairs than attendees. About a third in attendance were city employees or cable TV staff.
It is estimated that approximately 20 homeowners were in attendance, and many were husband and wife couples. At best, maybe 15 residential properties were represented.
Only Councilmember Elizabeth Barnett and Councilmember Erik Skogquist felt it worthy of their time to attend.
Most Opposed to City's Efforts
Several speakers raised pointed questions or spoke in outright opposition to the city's efforts to institute Government Managed Trash collection.
Hi, there, my name is Rich Fiberg [phonetic].
I’ve been living in Anoka at the same address on Butler Street for 29 years now. And I was also here five years ago when we had the other meeting in the same room to discuss the same thing. And there are a couple of things that just kind of come out to me as I compare this year from five years ago.
One is that when we were here five years ago, we had pretty much all the stakeholders here, and I think there was a lot more promotion of the event than what we saw this year. I just happened to hear it, you know, offhand, and so I started looking at this a little more again, and I came across that at our October 28th meeting that you and the Council had — and I got the transcript, and there’s a recording. I’d really encourage people to go online and look at that meeting, because what really comes through to me looking at this transcript is that the Council, particularly the Mayor and Freeburg and Skogquist have already decided this is what we’re going to do. But what our job now is to — and they use the same term over and over — “educate” the public that this is where they want to go. So I really have a concern that between that apparent attitude and the lack of the other stakeholders in this meeting, that really this isn’t so much for feedback but to convince us that this is where we want to go. And I’m a little bit concerned and that kind of raises a little bit of a red flag for me.
The other thing that’s kind of raised a red flag for me this evening is the presentation of the engineering of roads, because there are certainly other studies out there that point out, first of all, it’s never been quantified — the amount of deterioration that occurs between these various structures of garbage hauling. Moore Engineering up in Fergus Falls, for example, did a study of a number of cities, just like you had up there on that PowerPoint, and in their summary, they said, quote, “There’s not a definitive correlation between the type of garbage collection system and the cost per mile to maintain streets.” When Arden Hills went and were looking at this, they hired a URS [phonetic] to do a study and present the results to them, and they said, again, quoting from their results, “Environmental factors are generally responsible for the majority of pavement wear and deterioration, not the traffic.”
So when I hear a lot about the weight and, you know, some kind of cute anecdotes like bunnies and elephants — my stomach is not either a bunny or an elephant and I can’t engineer it either — so as hard as I try. But I guarantee you that there are a lot of roads, including Douglas Street where I live, that have never really been engineered well. Like it was built in 1960, and it was probably never brought up to code or anything, and it really falls apart on that basis, and so I think there’s a lot of things that are presumed and presented because it’s kind of like people want us to hear, and there’s a lot of other information here that I don’t think is being covered, and I just wanted to make that presentation. Thank you.
Jackie
I’m not anti-government. I just think they have better things to do than worry about my trash hauler.
Charlie
My name is Charlie, and I’ve lived in Anoka for the last five years, and before that, I lived in Blaine for ten years, and they have the city organized thing, and it’s more expensive than what I get bouncing — I don’t bounce between companies; I just call the company and say, “You know, I’m going to switch. What’s your best rates?” Not a lot of negotiating that I have to do, but it’s cheaper than it is through the city in Blaine. That’s one point.
No, the private stuff in Anoka is cheaper than what the city of Blaine rates are. So it isn’t necessarily cheaper to have it city run unless you just accept their increases every year and pay the full price with these six companies that service us.
My name is Barbara Baldwin, and I live in Anoka.
Thank you. You covered some of the things that I wanted to comment on. You’re talking about the city doing the billing and how easy that is going to be. When I moved here in 2005, the city did do all of the billing, and a few years ago — I don’t remember exactly how many — when I got disgusted with Republic for raising my rates without ever notifying me, and it just was coming through on the city billing, I changed haulers, and they said, “We no longer bill.” So I don’t think having the city doing the billing is as easy as it’s being presented, because they have basically discontinued doing it, and there had to be a reason for that.
I put up with organized hauling in the city of Anaheim in California for 30 years. One of the things you learn very quickly is that the hauler works for the city and not for you, so you get treated like trash. I’m not even going to begin to tell you all of the things that I could tell you about that.
Which is my point. They work for the city, not for you, so you get treated like trash. What about overflow? At Christmastime, we all have bags sitting out there next to our trash cans, because we’ve had so much stuff from Christmas, or when I took down some trees in the backyard, I had ten boxes of tree stuff that I put down with my yard waste, and my curbside driver came up and took all of those boxes and got them into his truck. And so what’s going to happen with overflow?
And then you’re talking about $47 million being spent in the last 20 years. The accountant in me has to say that’s about $2 million a year, which sounds like a very reasonable amount for refurbishing our streets, so take my vote that I’m really against it, because I had 30 years of very bad experience with it and I don’t want to go there again.
Male Speaker
The other thing I came up with is admin costs. It kind of concerns me, because, sure, it may not affect — well, it may not seem like we’re paying for it, but let’s say you have to hire another one to two people to manage this — because it’s going to be a lot of work — that’s not necessarily on our bill. That’s taken out of the general public taxes eventually because we pay for it, so technically it’s a cost that’s added on later that we don’t notice until — we don’t notice. It’s not on our monthly bill; it’s more we’re paying the city. So that’s something I want to make sure you’re aware of too. I mean, just because it’s not being on our bill, we’re still paying for an extra person, second person, whatever it may be, but there’s going to be costs to do that, admin costs.
My name is Barb Canyon [phonetic], and I live in Anoka on 5th Avenue.
I have several things I’d like to bring up. One thing I would say is I don't know — I know nothing about the weather versus the traffic, but everything around every school — I live down on 5th Avenue by Hans’ Bakery, and everything that feeds the school is a wreck. The streets. they are just awful. You’re fixing them and they’re getting better. The junior high now is good. There is an impact.
(see January 23, 2020 Open House transcript) coming soon...
Updated 1/31/20
Several speakers raised pointed questions or spoke in outright opposition to the city's efforts to institute Government Managed Trash collection.
Hi, there, my name is Rich Fiberg [phonetic].
I’ve been living in Anoka at the same address on Butler Street for 29 years now. And I was also here five years ago when we had the other meeting in the same room to discuss the same thing. And there are a couple of things that just kind of come out to me as I compare this year from five years ago.
One is that when we were here five years ago, we had pretty much all the stakeholders here, and I think there was a lot more promotion of the event than what we saw this year. I just happened to hear it, you know, offhand, and so I started looking at this a little more again, and I came across that at our October 28th meeting that you and the Council had — and I got the transcript, and there’s a recording. I’d really encourage people to go online and look at that meeting, because what really comes through to me looking at this transcript is that the Council, particularly the Mayor and Freeburg and Skogquist have already decided this is what we’re going to do. But what our job now is to — and they use the same term over and over — “educate” the public that this is where they want to go. So I really have a concern that between that apparent attitude and the lack of the other stakeholders in this meeting, that really this isn’t so much for feedback but to convince us that this is where we want to go. And I’m a little bit concerned and that kind of raises a little bit of a red flag for me.
The other thing that’s kind of raised a red flag for me this evening is the presentation of the engineering of roads, because there are certainly other studies out there that point out, first of all, it’s never been quantified — the amount of deterioration that occurs between these various structures of garbage hauling. Moore Engineering up in Fergus Falls, for example, did a study of a number of cities, just like you had up there on that PowerPoint, and in their summary, they said, quote, “There’s not a definitive correlation between the type of garbage collection system and the cost per mile to maintain streets.” When Arden Hills went and were looking at this, they hired a URS [phonetic] to do a study and present the results to them, and they said, again, quoting from their results, “Environmental factors are generally responsible for the majority of pavement wear and deterioration, not the traffic.”
So when I hear a lot about the weight and, you know, some kind of cute anecdotes like bunnies and elephants — my stomach is not either a bunny or an elephant and I can’t engineer it either — so as hard as I try. But I guarantee you that there are a lot of roads, including Douglas Street where I live, that have never really been engineered well. Like it was built in 1960, and it was probably never brought up to code or anything, and it really falls apart on that basis, and so I think there’s a lot of things that are presumed and presented because it’s kind of like people want us to hear, and there’s a lot of other information here that I don’t think is being covered, and I just wanted to make that presentation. Thank you.
Jackie
I’m not anti-government. I just think they have better things to do than worry about my trash hauler.
Charlie
My name is Charlie, and I’ve lived in Anoka for the last five years, and before that, I lived in Blaine for ten years, and they have the city organized thing, and it’s more expensive than what I get bouncing — I don’t bounce between companies; I just call the company and say, “You know, I’m going to switch. What’s your best rates?” Not a lot of negotiating that I have to do, but it’s cheaper than it is through the city in Blaine. That’s one point.
No, the private stuff in Anoka is cheaper than what the city of Blaine rates are. So it isn’t necessarily cheaper to have it city run unless you just accept their increases every year and pay the full price with these six companies that service us.
My name is Barbara Baldwin, and I live in Anoka.
Thank you. You covered some of the things that I wanted to comment on. You’re talking about the city doing the billing and how easy that is going to be. When I moved here in 2005, the city did do all of the billing, and a few years ago — I don’t remember exactly how many — when I got disgusted with Republic for raising my rates without ever notifying me, and it just was coming through on the city billing, I changed haulers, and they said, “We no longer bill.” So I don’t think having the city doing the billing is as easy as it’s being presented, because they have basically discontinued doing it, and there had to be a reason for that.
I put up with organized hauling in the city of Anaheim in California for 30 years. One of the things you learn very quickly is that the hauler works for the city and not for you, so you get treated like trash. I’m not even going to begin to tell you all of the things that I could tell you about that.
Which is my point. They work for the city, not for you, so you get treated like trash. What about overflow? At Christmastime, we all have bags sitting out there next to our trash cans, because we’ve had so much stuff from Christmas, or when I took down some trees in the backyard, I had ten boxes of tree stuff that I put down with my yard waste, and my curbside driver came up and took all of those boxes and got them into his truck. And so what’s going to happen with overflow?
And then you’re talking about $47 million being spent in the last 20 years. The accountant in me has to say that’s about $2 million a year, which sounds like a very reasonable amount for refurbishing our streets, so take my vote that I’m really against it, because I had 30 years of very bad experience with it and I don’t want to go there again.
Male Speaker
The other thing I came up with is admin costs. It kind of concerns me, because, sure, it may not affect — well, it may not seem like we’re paying for it, but let’s say you have to hire another one to two people to manage this — because it’s going to be a lot of work — that’s not necessarily on our bill. That’s taken out of the general public taxes eventually because we pay for it, so technically it’s a cost that’s added on later that we don’t notice until — we don’t notice. It’s not on our monthly bill; it’s more we’re paying the city. So that’s something I want to make sure you’re aware of too. I mean, just because it’s not being on our bill, we’re still paying for an extra person, second person, whatever it may be, but there’s going to be costs to do that, admin costs.
My name is Barb Canyon [phonetic], and I live in Anoka on 5th Avenue.
I have several things I’d like to bring up. One thing I would say is I don't know — I know nothing about the weather versus the traffic, but everything around every school — I live down on 5th Avenue by Hans’ Bakery, and everything that feeds the school is a wreck. The streets. they are just awful. You’re fixing them and they’re getting better. The junior high now is good. There is an impact.
(see January 23, 2020 Open House transcript) coming soon...
Updated 1/31/20