Score a win for Streetsboro Mayor Glenn Broska, who recently took Portage County commissioners to task over reduced recycling pickups without any commensurate reduction in the price of the service.
Last week, Broska said the Portage County Solid Waste Management District agreed to halve its rate for Streetsboro.
Streetsboro residents had been paying for weekly recycling, but the bins are only being emptied twice a month because of cost-cutting efforts at the waste management district.
Streetsboro has already signed a contract with Kimble Recycling & Disposal, but the company cannot start the recycling service until Oct. 1, Broska said. On Aug. 6 he addressed the commissioners, demanding that his constituents be credited for a month of service they are not receiving.
“Our contract says we will have weekly pickup for $3.82 a week,” he told the commissioners. “If we’ve got eight weeks left in this contract, and we’re only going to get every other week, I believe my citizens should be credited for one month of delivery. Send a credit so my citizens are compensated. They should get their money back.”
Turns out they will. Residents’ sewer bills will be cut from $3.50 to $1.75 a month, Broska said.
“I know it’s not much, but it’s the principle of the thing,” he said.
Since the waste management district has determined that retrieving the big blue recycling bins from every home would be too expensive, residents will keep their bins at least for a few months, according to a memorandum of understanding that Portage County Solid Waste Management District signed with Streetsboro City Council on Aug. 9.
Kimble will provide all residents with new recycling bins, and the waste management district will decide whether to pick up the big blue bins then, or ever.
Wendy DiAlesandro is a former Record Publishing Co. reporter and contributing writer for The Portager.