Landlords Air Grievances To City Over Trash Ordinance
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
For over 1-1/2 hours, landlords questioned the solid waste ordinance the City of Warsaw Common Council considered Monday night, telling councilmen that if they incur any costs because of it they will pass those costs unto their tenants who can least afford it. The council did vote to approve it 4-2 on second reading, having approved it 6-0 on first reading at the April 4 meeting. The ordinance states that every one-family and two-family dwelling unit will be supplied by the city with a refuse storage container with a capacity of either 96 or 64 gallons. Residential complexes – four or fewer units – will be supplied with containers equal to the number of units. Rental unit communities – five or more rental units – will not be served by the city. Containers must be removed from city streets within 24 hours of having been emptied by the city. Mayor Joe Thallemer said the Solid Waste Task Force worked on the ordinance for a while and approved it. “The ordinance itself reflects primarily the increase in the trash can size to allow for the 64- and 96-gallon cans. It also puts into place some street department rules that have never been defined in ordinance regarding the number of apartment units that will be served,” Thallemer said. “Then we also put a 24-hour time to have trash cans brought back in ... which I don’t think is a big deal. Sixty percent of the trash cans are out now and we don’t have that problem.” Councilman Jerry Frush said he was asked by a person if they put their trash can out on a Friday and left it out for the weekend, what would happen? Thallemer said the ordinance requires it be brought back in within 24 hours, but no one was going to go out and fine people. “Basically, the 24 hours sets a community standard that we already have,” Thallemer said. “... It puts it in the ordinance and sets a community standard.” Landlord Willard Brandt told the council that “a group of us that own investment property here in town found out about the proposed ordinance, looked at it, saw some real problems for our operating policies. It’s not that we’re totally against it, we’d just like to see what is going to be included in all of this.” He said Thallemer talked about having a standard, but if the city was going to have a standard it had to live with it. “Right now we have standards that we don’t follow,” Brandt said. He said he has multiple units and he gets treated differently from one complex he owns to the next. “Why? It’s because we’re not following our standards, so that’s something we ought to consider and all of us should be involved in that,” Brandt said. He said there was a concern about fines for violating the ordinance. Later in the meeting, Thallemer said the ordinance doesn’t have anything about fines in it. Another concern, Brandt said, was, “I’m going to have to raise rents on each of my apartments, $15 a month, just to cover the costs. Is that a lot of money? No, not right now with the economy being pretty good. But when things tighten up, that’s going to be a lot to a lot of people. And that’s something we need to look at.” He proposed the council table the ordinance and get the folks who own multiple properties involved to address all the issues. Thallemer said the rules have always been in place within the street department for four units or less, but never in ordinance form. The ordinance states directly that commercial and industrial properties’ trash will not be picked up, but currently some do have their trash picked up, which has gotten away from the rules of the street department. The idea of the new ordinance is to set rules that are no different from other communities, including not picking up trash at complexes that are five units or more. Thallemer said there isn’t a community that picks up trash at complexes with five or more units. There is no fee charged for trash pick-up, Thallemer said. With the new garbage truck, trash cans and ordinance, he said the city is trying to control its costs and prevent from having to add a fee. “We don’t deal with Dumpsters. We don’t own Dumpsters, we don’t dispense Dumpsters, we don’t maintain Dumpsters. We’re not a full-service waste hauling unit. We’re going to pick up Totes at four units or less, which is actually cheaper than what you get in Fort Wayne,” Thallemer said. He reminded Brandt that the city has given the landlords an extra six months – until Nov. 9 – to figure out what they’re going to do with their tenants’ trash. Another landlord, Chad Zartman, asked the council several questions. He said when Thallemer said there was no fee for trash pickup, that implies it was free, but renters pay their landlords’ property taxes so they’re paying for trash already and will have to pay for it again when their rent goes up to pay for the trash removal service of Dumpsters since the city doesn’t empty Dumpsters. At complexes of four units or fewer where they do have trash cans, if a trash can is lost or stolen, they’ll have to pay for the replacements. “We have to babysit the trash cans. We get the fines when they don’t put them back. Renters sometimes aren’t the most responsible people. We have no choice but to keep the Dumpsters, therefore, come May 9, we will have to pass on the costs. We’re not going to eat it. This is a business for us so we’re going to pass on the cost,” Zartman said. He said none of the landlords wanted the trash cans for their tenants. Zartman asked why Village Mobile Home Park wasn’t included in getting Totes. Thallemer said it was like a rental community of five units or more and the road also didn’t meet the city’s specifications so trucks would tear that road up. Brandt commented that the landlords at Monday’s meeting represented 175 units affected. Attorney and landlord Patti Taylor, South Country Club Road, was concerned if the ordinance violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. She said the city can’t classify people differently and the ordinance classifies people by the fact that they rent and not own property. City attorney Mike Valentine said the definition of rental unit communities came word for word from Indiana statue. Taylor also remarked that while their tenants will not be happy with their landlords for raising their rent, the tenants will be informed that the increase was due to the council’s actions. She also said that she has six tenants above Mi Lindo Acapulco, who put their trash into a Dumpster that the city picks up, but she never received a letter that it wouldn’t be doing that anymore. She, and other landlords at the meeting, said they didn’t know about the ordinance until the last week or two, even though most read the newspaper or read the news online. Stories about the ordinance have previously appeared in the newspaper. At one point, Thallemer said the city has done everything it could to notify people of the changes – online, newspapers, social media, etc. – so if anyone had any idea of how to better get the information out there, to let him know. Other landlords speaking out against the ordinance included Bruce Woodward, George Ruckman, Chris Volkers and Dennis Brown. Resident Anne Bonewitz had concerns about the elderly taking their trash can to and from the curb. After the council passed the ordinance, Thallemer agreed to meet with representatives of the landlord group to discuss issues further.
