A Kane County decision to spend about $600,000 a year on tourism and development projects, rather than on waste-disposal issues as originally intended, met resistance Wednesday night in St. Charles.
At a city Finance Committee meeting, officials argued that the money could be better used to create waste-recycling programs in Kane County towns. And in a unanimous vote, the seven-person committee decided to draft a resolution committing the city to develop a recycling program along with the neighboring cities of Geneva and Batavia. The three towns have been discussing the possibility of doing so for about three months.
The resolution also urges Kane to help the towns in those efforts by waiving or greatly reducing the garbage surcharges they must pay to the county.
”I`ve got no problem with the surcharge if we would use it to further waste-disposal methods,” Finance Committee Chairman James Martin said. ”But to take those funds and put them toward tourism seems awfully strange to me.” On Tuesday, County Board members voted overwhelmingly to use about $600,000 from the county`s Waste Management Enterprise Fund to finance two funds to promote tourism and development. They did so at the urging of Philip Elfstrom, the county`s landfill coordinator and forest preserve president.
”I can`t buy their thinking,” Martin said Wednesday. ”I don`t think the board members understood what they were doing.”
Elfstrom contends that there is no pressing need to use the money for waste-disposal planning, as intended when the fund was created, because Kane has adequate landfill space through the year 2000.
The County Board also approved a surcharge of 45 cents per cubic yard on garbage dumped at the county`s Settler`s Hill Landfill, near Geneva. The surcharge, which state statute requires be used only for waste management purposes, will free up $1.16 million in the enterprise fund to pay for the two new funds.
The St. Charles resolution was initiated by a memorandum from city administrator William Birth. The memorandum says that St. Charles is willing to endorse the county`s newly passed 45-cent surcharge if the money is used for two purposes: to provide ongoing incentives to municipalities that develop and implement solid-waste management plans, such as recycling and compost-collection programs; and to provide and operate a compostable material dropoff site where such materials can be dumped and compacted by haulers at no charge.
”This should not be viewed as an extra burden on the county, as funds are currently available in an existing enterprise fund, and the new 45-cent per cubic yard surcharge will generate additional revenues,” the memorandum says.
”Since the funds are generated by landfill use, it is only appropriate that they be used to encourage, develop, implement and maintain pro-active waste-management programs within the county.”
According to St. Charles Mayor Fred Norris, Elfstrom has told St. Charles officials that he will help them try to find a compost dropoff site, but he won`t provide funding to operate the site.
Norris and Birth, along with Aurora Mayor David Pierce, have said that money from the enterprise fund should be used exclusively for solid-waste planning. ”We`re looking at a lot of costs to take care of garbage concerns in the future,” Norris said. ”To wait and pay the piper later instead of doing active planning now doesn`t make sense to me.”
Elfstrom was not available for comment, but he said Tuesday that, for legal reasons, he does not intend to give fee reductions to municipalities that do recycling. He said towns could use the Community Development Assistance Program, one of the new funds, to apply for 50 percent matching grants to institute recycling programs.
”That`s like giving us our money back and then making us match it,”
Birth said.
Under state statute, Waste Management of Illinois Inc., which operates Settler`s Hill, can pass the cost of the 45-cent surcharge to the consumer.
