LOGAN — The question of whether to institute a parcel fee to help fund the Athens-Hocking Solid Waste District (AHSWD) received an airing at a public hearing last Thursday at the Hocking County Fairgrounds.
The meeting is available to view on the Hocking County Commissioners’ Facebook page. It attracted well over 100 members of the public, with another 2,600 viewing it remotely as of Monday morning.
Whereas the hearing in Nelsonville, covered earlier this month in the Logan Daily News, attracted some mixed opinions on the parcel fee — a $24 annual charge to any improved parcel across the two member counties — the one in Logan received resounding disapproval.
The two-and-a-half-hour dialogue ran off topic several times, with many residents keen to express their gripes about tourism in Hocking County, and others chiding the solid waste district for “piss poor planning,” as one resident put it.
Jane Forrest Redfern, the director of the district, took a last shot at swaying critics of the parcel fee in the overview of her 15-year plan, mandated every five years by the Ohio EPA.
She argued that purchasing the remaining debt on the Athens County recycling center and owning the building would retain “local, public control,” ensuring that recyclable materials can be kept and sorted within the district, rather than outsourced elsewhere.
A mere increase in tiered and generation fees, from $4 to $7 per ton, would not feasibly allow the AHSWD to purchase the center. Redfern said it would also not control for how much haulers may raise rates in response.
Crissa Cummings, director of the Athens-Hocking Recycling Center, also speaking in favor of the parcel fee’s instution, called generation and tiered fees “an unreliable source of income.”
In response to some of the opposition to the parcel fee, Redfern introduced at Thursday’s public hearing a potential third option, a compromise. It would involve a yearly parcel fee of $15, down from $24, and an increase in tiered fees of only $1 per ton locally.
The compromise had little to no effect on the opposition’s stance.
A couple of residents opposed to the parcel fee argued that it would be more “equitable” to use generation and tiered fees: “You generate more, you pay more.” They made the case that the parcel fee would unfairly impact single-family homeowners, while multi-family housing on a single parcel would not bear as much of the brunt.
Marjorie Moore, director of the Scenic Hills Senior Center, spoke from the perspective of aging adults she said would have a hard time taking on an additional fee on their property taxes.
“I am for recycling, but I am not for the parcel fee,” she said, a common refrain among many of the speakers on Thursday evening.
Michael Nihiser, a frequent face at public meetings in the county, raised the current “unaffordability” of property in Hocking County. “It doesn’t make sense with existing high taxes” to place the parcel fee on top of that, he said.
Another resident summed up the tenor of the meeting quite well.
“I hope the commissioners hear (opposition to the parcel fee), because they will come election season,” she said.
The county commissioners are set to vote this coming Thursday on whether or not to implement the parcel fee.
If it is voted down, next steps would require an approval among 60% of jurisdictions in Athens and Hocking counties to raise generation and tiered fees. If that is struck down, the Ohio EPA will step in and mandate how the solid waste district is funded to meet state recycling requirements.
Email at rmorris@logandaily.com
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