During the late summer and then through 2007 and into 2008 a Recycling Committee met to explore improving the town's recycling collection program. The Town's 2007 Annual Report provided a synopsis of the committee's work in 2007. It stated there would be quarterly newsletter provided to town residents in 2008.

[NOTE: You didn't receive an Annual Report? Well, that's another one of those pieces of information you're supposed to have a Crystal Ball to know about. They aren't mailed to anyone. You're just supposed to know when they're available ONLY at the town office, the Eddington Town Store (the Citgo station) and the Tradewinds general store. Not interested? You should be. It's the one legally mandated document that reports the previous year's approved town budget and how much the town spent and for what - your tax dollars at work...more or less. It's a pretty booklet - good quality paper and card stock and not cheap to print. Too bad the town fathers & mother don't think it's their responsibility to insure every taxpayer receives one.]

So back to the Recycling Newsletter...
You haven't received a newsletter? Neither has anyone else. And that's because the Town Office hasn't sent it to you. The Selectmen have a copy of it. They know what's in it - and they know the committee intended for all residents to have the information, and to complete and return the included questionnire BEFORE the Selectmen began planning the 2009 budget. They began planning the 2009 budget on December 2, 2008.

Why hasn't the newsletter been copied and mailed out?

The newsletter shows how we could reduce the cost of our recycling collection program by over $8,000.00 (that's eight THOUSAND dollars) annually if we changed to a program used by the nearby town of Clifton. Considering the hard economic times and the potential increase in state taxes (that news came out this past week) not to mention the three MILLION dollar school budget increase if the school consolidation issue passes (more on that in a future blog), don't you think everyone in our town's government should be looking at how we can reduce any line item? I do. Especially since ANY increased costs are only going to increase our PROPERTY TAXES.

The town office has had the newsletter (a two page, back-to-back document that provides a half a page for address labeling and post-stamp) since AUGUST. I know this because I was the Chair of the committee and I wrote the newsletter.

The original draft was provided to both the town manager and the town office employee who was on the committee. (Other committee members included two women who work at the Eddington School, a retired Bangor city hall employee who knew a lot about local government contracting rules and procedures, a retired gentleman who has since had to go back to work, and a gentleman who worked full-time but served as a great resource.) The town office employee was at every committee meeting and a valuable asset - no complaints there. The town manager was at some of the meetings and stayed through one or two. He's also the one who recruited me for the committee, BTW.

The committee met with several vendors who provide recycling collection, the primary representative from the Bangor Recycling Center (where our recycling items are delivered), the representative from PERC (where our regular trash is delivered - and this was an important meeting), and a representative from a new system that doesn't require separating out different recycling items before collection. The committee did a lot of work and learned a lot more than any of us knew before we began. BUT - then came the work of putting the information together for the people to review and that's where we hit a snag -

You can say the snag is in the town office - or you can say it is with the Selectmen. But, how much work does it take to get a two page document to a copying company in Brewer or Bangor for an over-night printing job, especially when one town office employee lives in Brewer? Let her leave early one day (the office closes at 4pm anyway) and pick up the copies the next morning.

When I took the newsletter to the Selectmen's meeting in November and complained that it had still not been mailed out in spite of numerous requests for additions that had become outdated and therefore needed to be removed and STILL nothing had happened, the Chair acted shocked that I expected a newsletter would be mailed to EVERY resident household. Why not? They expect every resident taxpayer to receive (and pay) a property tax bill - and they can use the same company to label our newsletter - if the town office can't. (BTW, the Chair attend a committee meeting and knew about the neewsletter mailings so her "shock" was either a lapse of memory - genuine or otherwise - or something else.)

Bottm line: The "powers that be" appear to be more willing to spend $8,000.00+ more on a recycling collection system than whatever it would take to mail a simple newsletter and questionnaire to you to find out how YOU would feel about a two-year pilot program to test this cost-saving method. And if you don't like it? The newsletter provides really interesting information about how PERC is, in actuality, a recycling program in its own right - generating electricity which it sells to the power grid that is then sold back to Bangor Electric Company. And THAT reduces the town's costs for processing its regular trash - one of the lowest in the state!

So, I say - again - what is the problem?

Except that it is part of the overall basic problem in our town - OUR local government. They avoid, at all costs, communication between them and the people. Maybe even more important - they avoid communication FROM us to them.

Call the town office. Tell them - Tell the Selectmen - You want your Recycling Newsletter. Tell them you won't approve any recycling vendor contracts until you have received the newsletter and the TOWNSPEOPLE have made a decision.

FYI: The company that currently collects the regular trash weekly is the same company that collects the recycling trash every other week - and it has separate contracts for each kind of trash collection. The recycling trash collection contract was over $10,000.00 in 2008 and it has steadily increased every year. That contract is up for bid or renewal in 2009. All this information is in the newsletter.