While citizens expect their various levels of government to become creative in cost reduction, not every initiative will be popular.
The city has come up with a plan to reduce city sanitation costs by going to garbage collection every second week rather than weekly. It is also hoped this will force people to become more aware of what they toss out and recycle more, thus not filling the landfill as quickly.
But the reaction by many in the city has been negative. It seems people have legitimate concerns ranging from amount of trash young families accumulate to foul odours in the heat of summer.
Unfortunately, the alternative is higher taxes.
It’s been shown time and again that people don’t want to pay more taxes — in fact, we want to pay less.
But status quo costs money. In paring down the city’s budget, reduced service is seen as a way to cut costs. We can’t have both.
