The Greene County supervisors at their Jan. 12 meeting approved a notice of termination of the 28E agreement with the city of Jefferson to provide recycling services for rural residents.
For many years the county towns had 28E agreements with the city of Jefferson, via the Greene County Recycling Agency, to provide recycling services for those residents. That service has not been curbside, but dumpsters were provided in each town for residents to place their recyclable materials in. The city of Jefferson has had another 28E agreement with the county to provide recycling service for rural residents. That has also been via dumpsters, often placed in a convenient location in a town.
The issue of where items were being taken for recycling came to the forefront with the dissolution of the Greene County Recycling Agency last year. The cities of Scranton, Grand Junction and Churdan did not sign agreements with Jefferson for recycling. However, Grand Junction residents use the county-funded dumpster placed in town. The situation is similar in Scranton and Churdan.
The challenge for the county, supervisor Dawn Rudolph said, is that towns can recoup the cost of recycling by adding a charge to residents’ water bills, but the county doesn’t have that option. She said terminating the 28E agreement would be “a way to move forward” with whatever recycling will look like in the future.
Jefferson city administrator Scott Peterson presented his monthly update earlier in the meeting and stayed for the recycling discussion. He lobbied on behalf of the city. “This relies on all of the parties being good partners on this in order for this to succeed. What we hear is not to work together. It is drop and terminate the agreement. It’s pretty disappointing to see that…. We’d love to continue to work together in a positive arrangement.”
Supervisor Joe Gannon pointed out that without all the towns participating, it costs other partners more. He suggested talking with those that no longer participate to find a solution. “It works well when everybody works together, if we can figure out what that looks like,” he said.
The 28E agreement allowed the county to terminate the agreement without a stated cause. However, the agreement called for the county to have budget numbers to the county by Jan. 1, and the city didn’t get them to the county until Jan. 9. County attorney Thomas Laehn advised the supervisors the county needs to have an agreement for recycling in place by Feb. 13, either with a new 28E agreement with the city, or by finding another recycler.
No dollar figures were discussed at the meeting. Jefferson city administrator Scott Peterson said at the city council meeting Tuesday that not having the county and the three towns in the agreement is a $53,000 loss to the city.
