Revised service levels ordinance pushed back by Whatcom County Council

Introduction of an ordinance that would reduce bi-weekly curbside pickup by half in Point Roberts was pushed back until it can be considered by Whatcom County Council’s Public Works and Health (PWH) committee on November 10. The committee is chaired by at-large member Carol Frazey.

The ordinance had been a late addition to council’s regular meeting agenda for October 27 and was put forth by Tyler Byrd, District 3 councilmember representing the Foothills district. The addition came after the Point Roberts Community Advisory Committee (PRCAC) wrote to council asking it to lower the service levels. PRCAC’s motion to do so was approved by a 3-1 vote with one absence.

The item appeared as new business on PRCAC’s agenda for its regular meeting on October 15 and received little, if any, public attention.

PRCAC’s letter to council simply called for service levels to be cut and did not ask for any other changes to the program. It specifically requested that the current billing system be retained; however, under the ordinance proposed by Byrd, responsibility for billing would be given to Cando, the service provider.

Byrd discussed the billing issue at the October 27 PWH committee meeting but gave no indication of the provenance of the idea. The All Point Bulletin has made an Open Public Records request seeking all correspondence to and from Byrd involving curbside pickup in Point Roberts.

The billing issue received pushback by other councilmembers during the committee meeting who expressed doubt that Cando would be able to survive under the proposed scenario.

Byrd had cited an imbalance between what the company had collected in excise taxes from customers versus what was submitted to the county as the rationale but appeared taken aback when advised by county health department staffer Jeff Hegedus who reminded him that council last year changed the way that excise taxes were accessed for all garbage companies in the county.

Saying Byrd’s statement was incorrect, he told committee members that the current collection system was “spot-on.”

Councilmember Rud Browne questioned why the issue of service levels had come back to council. “I beg council not to get roped into this,” he said, attributing the controversy to a small number of people unhappy with the company.

“If you look at the emails received by county council, 75 percent of them are happy with the service and the 25 percent against are mostly Canadians,” he said. He pointed out that if those same people had a cabin in Whistler, they would have to pay year-round for the same service.

(Ed. note: Due to an error, Rud Browne's statement in the print and online version of the paper originally read as follows: “If you look at the emails received by the company ..." He actually referred to correspondance received by the county.)

Most of the objections to the system have come from people who believe one 32-gallon can every two weeks is excessive.

According to figures supplied by Cando for the period January – September of this year, the vast majority of customers are using at least that number of cans.

There are 102 customers who are signed up for weekly service. Of 512 regular mandated service customers, 488 households (or 95.3%) regularly put out two or more cans per month. Just 24 customers put out one can a month. Approximately 15 percent of mandated service customers have exceeded the maximum 26-can allotment this year and will be charged for additional cans until the end of 2020.

Currently, one customer has used over 60 cans, two have used over 50, six have used over 40 and about a dozen have used 30 or more.

The company estimates that dropping to one can a month would save those customers about $2 while the vast majority of customers would see an increase. It is likely that the company would be unable to still offer the flexibility of when cans could be picked up under a one can per month system as it would introduce too much uncertaintly into the workflow.

The apparent lack of notice by PRCAC and service levels sparked major controversy on the NextDoor social media platform. A large number of commenters questioned how representative the groups and members comprising the PRCAC were while others debated the adequacy of the proposed service levels.

Suggestions that the motivation behind reducing service levels lay in a long-standing feud between Ken Calder and the recently-deceased owner of Cando, David Gellatly, were met with a pushback from Calder, his wife Alli, and sister Annette Madden.

In turn, another sister, Beth, chimed in and wrote, “If you aren’t trying to hide something, why is it a surprise to the majority of our community? There is a small group well known as “the hateful eight” that have an issue with the ownership of Cando and that has got to stop. Try to work as a community and ask for public input in advance.”

At its evening meeting, council delayed the introduction of the proposed ordinance until after it receives consideration by the PWH committee on November 10 following a rate review by WUTC on October 29. By so doing, it makes it very difficult to make changes for 2021. The earliest it could go to public hearing would be November 24.

“This is not a good day,” said council clerk Dana Brown-Davis, who pointed out council is due to approve the county’s budget for 2021 as well as amendments to the Cherry Point area plan on that day, both subjects fraught with complexity and competing interests.

Should the issue of service levels and billing responsibility go into December, it would be too late to make changes to the tax roll for 2021, making it a moot issue for another year.