Before Tuesday evening’s City Council meeting, there was a meeting of the Judiciary Committee, which includes Tom Klitzka, Chair, Sheri Theis and John Moats. The first matter before the committee was the issue of renewal of the existing solid waste agreement.
Pickaway County is one of four counties that are joined together in the Ross-Pickaway-Highland-Fayette Joint Solid Waste Management District. Under a law passed in 1988, House Bill 592, every county in Ohio is required to establish its own or join other counties to form a solid waste management district. The reason for forming these districts is to plan for the implementation of a recycling program to reduce the amount of solid waste going into landfills.
Currently, all four of the counties in our solid waste district send their waste to a landfill outside of the four counties. There is no landfill in any of the four counties in our district. The solid waste generated in Pickaway County is sent to one of four landfills, including one in Kentucky.
The goal of increasing recycling is important for two reasons: (1) it reduces the solid waste to be disposed of, and (2) it extends the life of the landfills. Pickaway County is charged a generation fee of $3.00 per ton, so increasing the use of recycling will reduce the amount of solid waste generated and reduce fees.
Recently, the recycling bins placed behind the Ace Hardware were removed because too many residents were dumping items like furniture, etc. that could not be recycled. There are now nine recycling bins in Pickaway County — three on Island Road on County-owned property and six at the Rumpke transfer facility, also on Island Road.
Our solid waste management district is setting a goal of reducing our solid waste generation by 25%. This goal is not being implemented this year but will be more important in the future.
The generation fee of $3 did not increase this year. But the problem of creating new landfills will become a very big issue at some point in the future.
Almost every community wants their solid waste taken somewhere else, so finding new locations for new landfills, and paying for the approvals and the environmental impact statements will make the proposition very expensive. Everything is fine now, but there will be problems in the future.
During New Business, a second topic was introduced. The recently appointed City Planner, Hannah Wynne, spoke before the committee about the need to plan for the legalization of recreational marijuana. The voters in Ohio approved this use last November in a statewide referendum. The State of Ohio has been trying to create the regulations to implement the new law and has set September 7, 2024 as the date when the new rules will go into effect.
Under current zoning laws in effect in the City of Circleville, there are certain regulations that need to be met. But none of the current rules in place would prevent a marijuana dispensary from opening up a shop in Circleville.
Therefore, the committee agreed to work with Law Director Kendra Kinney to determine how to put a moratorium in effect for 90, 180 or an indefinite leght of days, so that the rules coming down from the State of Ohio could be analyzed first.
Under current Ohio law, medical marijuana is legal. There are no medical marijuana dispensaries in Pickaway County, in large part because of the efforts of the Pickaway Addiction Action Coalition (PAAC) under the leadership of Susan Metzger. With this strong opposition to medical marijuana, it can be expected that recreational marijuana will also be strongly opposed. Chillicothe and Columbus do have medical marijuana dispensaries.
During the regular meeting of the full City Council, William Haddox of Circleville spoke about the lack of knowledge concerning the use of marijuana in regard to gun laws. He wanted to increase public awareness of the fact that even medicinal use of marijuana makes owning a firearm illegal. He shared a humorous story of a consumer attempting to purchase a firearm, and when asked for identification, that consumer used their medical marijuana card as their ID. They were immediately denied.
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