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    Who are the NERD fund donors Mr Snyder?

    Raise the curtain.

    A Small Victory


    By JGillman, Section News
    Posted on Mon Mar 14, 2011 at 10:58:55 PM EST
    Tags: Morality, Choice, Rights, Politics, Michigan, Peninsula, Acme, East Bay, Townships, Traverse City, Garbage, Monopolies, Government (all tags)

    One of the local issues that has continued to make headlines is the single hauler question.  The question being, whether it is appropriate for the local governments to mandate a single hauler for an entire area of private citizens or allow them to continue choosing their own.

    Let that sink in.

    Allowing private citizens to make a decision on what garbage service they might purchase.

    The chilling advocacy of removing the ability of one to contract for themselves, often becomes the result of a perceived problem.  A perceived problem that has likely been amplified by complaints of noise, traffic, and "those ugly ol garbage trucks driving by more than once a week."  Grown out of proportion by elected officials concerned about the financial means of maintaining roadways as their budgets disintegrate around them. Grown, amplified, and thrust forward eagerly by the "gods of the copybook headings."

    A city, and two townships have fallen to this ruse of benefit to the citizenry.   The false promise of saved roads, and less garbage truck traffic blight buying the conservative souls of those who think they are being fiscally responsible negotiating the "best deals" for their constituents.  The false promise and Faustian bargain that takes away the true rights to negotiate for one's own self, and instead, insert a board-knows-best dependency upon the public.

    For a little coin.

    The city of Traverse, the township of Peninsula, both which I represent a part or all, had already decided to seek the route of guardian of the pocketbook.  Not from a fiscally prudent manner of less spending on affairs of government, but in choosing our vendors of rubbish removal. How enlightened. I of course, could not weigh in on these matters.  Its not my place, except as a concerned citizen.  

    In the city, those who had negotiated a deal of their own without this glorious assistance find they are paying more without the added benefit of being able to opt out of their newly acquired service of the city's choosing.

    On the peninsula, the locals are waking to find they had apparently given a mandate to the township leadership to take this choice from them. Not surprisingly, most of the residents I spoke to did not recall such a thing.

    And in Acme township?  Who knows? I can be in only so many places at once.

    But in East Bay Township, the vote to put this intellectual heresy to rest, came in a 5-0 manner.  All of the support for such a thing completely vacating the board in a regular meeting tonight.

    Having been there each step of the way, it seemed this would be a duplicate scenario of the other entities which rolled it on forward.  Seeing the path it was taking had assumed the same type of style and methodology, including the same type of 'push  polling' to accomplish that end, I thought it might be futile to persist in our (some others and myself)  speaking against the measure.

    We endured, and we prevailed.  It is ended.  there will be no single hauler chosen by a few for the nearly 5000 households of East Bay Township.

    And though seemingly a small matter, it was a great moral victory.

    < Children Shields Used For The MI-GOP Tax Increases? | Sammie Finalists >


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    Congrats! (none / 0) (#1)
    by Corinthian Scales on Tue Mar 15, 2011 at 12:01:09 AM EST
    Seriously.  In today's world, I wouldn't be so quick to minimize your success.

    Congratulations! (none / 0) (#2)
    by RushLake on Wed Mar 16, 2011 at 05:47:45 AM EST
    We moved our voting address from (creeping blue) Plymouth Township in blue Wayne County to Lyon Township in Oakland County (God bless Brookes Patterson) last year and have our own contracted trash pick-up. It has worked well, and there are about three choices for haulers. We pay $45.00 every three months for weekly pickup which includes anything we put on the curb. I haven't tried a junk car yet so that may be an exception. It is sold as a means to keep the local government out of the trash hauling business and I like that idea.

    Our own personal choices don't just extend to our choice of trash hauler. It has to do with our basic constitutional right to private property. There is too much intrusion by government at all levels in our lives. Government tells me that I must pay taxes (private property dollars) on my pension in order to pay higher public employee union member pension and benefits which aren't negotiated, they're granted by the government. Government tells me that I can't fill a hole on my private property unless I get permission from some punk at DEQ and pay a fee of $500.00 just to ask permission. It goes on. On a personal level, I've decided that "asking mother may I" isn't going to happen anymore.  

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