Malden’s mayor steps up for trash bag fees
MALDEN - Days after using his campaign fund to send an anonymous mailing to voters in support of a controversial trash fee, Mayor Richard Howard told Malden’s City Council last night that the year-old program has preserved public services in this community of about 55,000.
He said those services will suffer if residents vote in favor of a ballot question to repeal the fee on Nov. 3.
“I do believe that erasing this program will cause this council and my office to make some extremely difficult’’ budget cuts, Howard said.
The fee, known as pay-as-you-throw, began last October. The goal was to raise $2.5 million and save $600,000 in solid-waste disposal costs, officials said. In order to have their trash picked up, residents are required to purchase City of Malden trash bags, at a cost of $10 per box. Residents pay only for trash they throw away, in theory. Weekly recycling is also mandated, according to a city ordinance.
Subsidies and discounts are available for low-income residents and the elderly.
Howard said yesterday that the city has raised about $1.7 million and saved about $800,000 in disposal costs in the last year. There is less trash because people are recycling more.
The City Council voted in June to put the measure on the ballot to repeal the trash program. The action came after a group that opposes the trash fee, Malden Taxpayers for Accountability, collected 5,000 signatures in support of a citywide vote on the matter.
“I can tell you unequivocally that it is working,’’ Howard said of the new program.
He made the same point last weekend under a cloud of secrecy, spending campaign funds to send a mailing to all registered voters, urging them to reject the ballot question repealing the fee when they go to the polls.
The pamphlet did not disclose who sent the mailing, puzzling many recipients. Howard took credit on Monday, after a firm that handled the mailing directed Globe inquiries to City Hall.
Howard told the Globe that he did not initially identify himself as the sender because he felt the content was more important.
Most councilors expressed support for the pay-as-you-throw program while questioning Howard last night. Councilor Neal Anderson lamented that many residents have stopped using trash barrels, instead leaving their city-issued bags on the sidewalk, attracting dogs and rodents.
“I put my bags in the trash containers and you don’t have an issue with the rodents,’’ Anderson said.
One resident, William Cullen, who opposes the fee, got up to address the council unprompted even though the trash presentation was not supposed to include public comment. He told the panel that “the mayor is wrong.’’
Repeal supporters face an uphill battle. For the measure to pass, one-third of all registered voters - at least 10,000 - would have to vote to kill the fee. About 3,200 voters came out for the primary in September.
