It is becoming more apparent that the City of Brooklyn Park is determined to shove the "organized" garbage hauling down the throats of residents who overwhelmingly oppose it. At least if city staff gets their way on the issue.
On June 6th our City Council instructed staff to conduct three "Community Cafe's" from which they would draw their input and base their conclucions. Three meetings were held, hundreds of people gave up their summer evenings to show up, and 85% of them opposed the plan. It wasn't even close.
From conversations I and others have concluded that city staff who are pushing this didn't see the demographic mix they'd expected nor the results they thought they'd see. So instead of just accepting the will of the people they decided to spend more of your tax dollars on a telephone survey. From what I'm told, because I didn't see that meeting, this is in contradiction to what the Council said they'd do in making a decision on the subject. While the city was already spending money on a general survey, there is always a cost associate with adding more questions.
So our city staff, who had already spent a great deal on the Cafe's is now spending even more to try and get opinions from people who didn't care enough to show up at three meetings. The person at home who didn't care gets the same vote as the person who invested two hours of their summer to show up and offer their input.
Disturbingly I've been learning things that really ought to raise the ire of Brooklyn Park residents. At the Cafe's we're told in an email from the staff person who seems to be pushing this idea that they had no intention of having votes, a raise of hands, at the Cafe's. As I saw people at all three meetings enter the rooms they were disturbed that there wouldn't be a time to speak before a microphone to the entire crowd. They were angry they had to sit around tables and have their opinions limited to just eight people. So now it's unsettling to learn that when residents forced a vote at each event that taxpayer-paid city staff didn't come with an intention of allowing such a vote.
At what point do we decide to listen to the people and just put a stop to this? The longer this goes on, the more ways staff attempts to find ways to elicit the response they want, the less credible the information (and staff) gets. Why are these people pushing this so hard?
Our city council has received a ton of emails and calls - many very, very angry - opposed to this issue. Despite the clear and unambiguous opposition from all quarters of our city, these people continue to push this agenda. Why?
I wasn't a big fan of Jesse Ventura but he did have one line he used a lot that is often true; Follow the money. This is clearly being pushed as a way to increase city revenue (that's what it's called when they're taking more money from your pocket, your family). They'll claim they're "saving you money" but the reality is this will be a way to take more money from you down the road. Every year there's a shortfall they'll just increase the garbage fee $.50 or $1.00. You'll never notice, they'll think, and pretty soon your "savings" is costing you money. Think I'm dreaming? Remember the "temporary sales tax increase" when our state sales tax was 4.5%? Yeah, temporary. Government always, always, always wants more and they never know when to quit taking it.
It's time to stop this thing in its tracks. Continue to contact your city council and let them know you're having none of this. Tell them you will work against any of them that votes in favor of confiscating your rights to choose your own garbage hauler. And then tell them we have more important things to do and to get back to work doing them.
