County may expand area of trash collection fees

Few people attended a hearing in Havre Tuesday on a proposal to expand the area of the Hill County Refuse District, but most of the comments on the record opposed the idea.

The Hill County Refuse Board is proposing expanding the area served - and charged - to the entire county excluding Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation, which has its own district, and charging all residential property owners the $85 annual fee, assessed with their property taxes.

The Hill County Park Board last year added Beaver Creek Park to the district, with cabin owners assessed half the regular fee. Roger Lincoln, who lives 16 miles north of Hingham, told the county commissioners and district board members at the hearing that there was a reason the district originally was set to include only six miles north and six miles south of U.S. Highway 2 west of Havre - people farther out don't use the dump sites.

"I have not hauled to the dumpster, I will not haul to the dumpster, and I don't care to have to pay to go to the dumpster," Lincoln said. "Like my neighbor, Donna Greytak, it's just not economically and logistically feasible to do that."

Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson read letters including from Greytak at the start of the hearing. Greytak, who could not attend the meeting, wrote in opposition to the expansion.

"If the county would put a dumpster five miles from us it would be different, but asking us to haul (26 miles) as well as pay $85 is not fair," she wrote. "Why should we pay the same rate as someone who lives across town from a dumpster?"

Peterson said Caroline Hall, who lives 18 miles north of Rudyard, called in and said she could not attend the meeting but opposed the proposal.

People can submit written comments on the proposal up to 60 days from the first published notice of the meeting, through Aug. 4.

Hill County Planner and Sanitarian Clay Vincent gave a history of the issue at the start of the meeting. In the early 1980s, the Unified Disposal Board was created, serving Blaine, Hill and northern Chouteau counties with the intent of reducing the number of small dump sites served in the region.

The county refuse district charges different fees depending on the property - different rates are set for businesses than residences and so on, he said.

The board has dump sites in Hill County, overseen by the county refuse district, in Beaver Creek Park, on Wild Horse and St. Joe roads, and at Fresno Reservoir and in Gildford, Hingham and Rudyard, as well as multiple dumpsters that are available all day, every day, at the landfill three miles east of Havre.

Hill County probably has more dump sites than any other county in the state, Vincent said, with some counties such as in the Flathead having dump sites only in the populated areas and people having to bring in their trash when they come to town.

Lincoln said that most counties do have closer sites - Flathead County has multiple sites, with most people in the lower valley only a few miles from dump sites.

"We have a home in Lakeside and we are a mile from the dumpster," he said. "No one in that area is more than five miles from a dumpster."

Lincoln suggested the county mail out a ballot to the people they had sent letters notifying them of the meeting, adding that he strongly discouraged the change.

Peterson also cited a letter from Dr. Lee Laeupple, who could not attend the meeting, saying Laeupple did not oppose the fee, but did have problems with having to pay the fee for his residence and business in Havre and another fee for property outside of the city.

Commissioner Jeff LaVoi, who lives south of Havre off of Beaver Creek Park, said people are using the dumpsters even when they aren't paying for the service, sometimes without knowing that.

He said until he started receiving property tax bills including a breakdown of what went where, he was one of those people. He thought he was paying for the service, LaVoi said.

Lincoln agreed that, if people are using the dumpsters, they should be paying for them.