JAY – A special town meeting will lead off Monday’s Board of Selectperson meeting, asking residents to approve placing a reimbursement into a reserve account for the Jay Police Department.
The article will ask the town if it will approve placing a $24,300 reimbursement from the town of Wells into the department’s reserve account. That money is associated with Officer Stephanie Guillemette leaving Jay’s employ back in April. Due to the officer’s relatively recent training at the Criminal Justice Academy, the town received the reimbursement to cover a portion of the costs of her training.
Town officials determined that a meeting would be necessary to accept the funds, which do not fall under the category of a donation. A second, related article at the special town meeting would provide the Board of Selectpersons with permission to accept and expend funds such as the reimbursement. Currently, the Administrative Ordinance allows donations to be accepted, this would widen the definition to match what some surrounding towns do.
As part of the board’s regular meeting, selectpersons will need to decide what to do with a petition submitted by residents to restore curbside pickup. The $120,000 cost of curbside, funds that pay Archie’s Inc. to collect trash and recyclables, was not included in the budget approved at the April town meeting. Curbside is currently scheduled to end as of July 1, although Archie’s, J & A Disposal and Riverside Disposal will be available to do private curbside pickup.
I would think that if you increased the budget by $120000 for the roadside pickup that $120000 would need to be reduced from another part of the budget. Perhaps the dump needs to only be open on Saturday and one other day. You can’t ask Verso to donate $120000. We still owe them another $1.3 million next year for over taxing them while we spent money like it would just keep coming. Maybe when they are paid off we can spend that $120000 again on curbside pickup. I/we want the curbside pickup but we need to pay the needs and see about the wants after.
All additional funds that come into the town and school should either be placed into the town or school departments surplus account. They should not be spent as the townspeople already approved the budget. A special town meeting can be held to spend this additional money if that is absolutely necessary to do so.
In the case of garbage pickup, the cost to an individual household is $30 per year. That was one of the few things my taxes go to that I get a good return on. Driving to the dump once a week cost more than that. Hiring a private hauler costs that much or more every month. Never should have cut curbside. Bring it back if we can verify these dollar amounts.
Where and what time is the meeting?
6 pm at the town office.
Susie right on and a lot of people would vote but the places they post the notice like at the post office.Hey a lot of people don’t have internet either.Michael you can just haul it to the transfer and see how much that will cost after you wait in line for 20 minutes.
With the taxes going up in the town of Jay and still owing Verso millions, we need to start cutting somewhere! Verso isn’t going to be around forever and we can’t support the town as usual with just the homeowerners. Some people pay $5000 or more in taxes now just to live in Jay. That is a lot of money. It is not a hardship to go to the dump.
Thank you for the meeting place and time.
Theresia, it is a hardship for me to go to the dump. I am poor and disabled from a horrible car accident. I cannot carry over ten pounds and rely on wheeled carts and wheeled garbage cans. So speak for yourself.
I go to the transfer station 2 times a week but I will still support curbside Monday night for my neighbors and they are worth 30.00 a year.
Our household doesn’t want to have to haul our trash to the dump either, however the recycling department needed to cut it’s budget by 10% like the goal for the other departments. To do that without having to cut another employee from the dump leaving only one, the trash pickup had to go, for now. If the budget gets changed that employee would need to go and the hours for the dump drastically reduced. So if you wait now, just imagine what will happen. Plus, some folks were talking about having us pay to drop off our trash, I’m sure that will be brought up again next year during the budget process. So it would be good to be aware and show up during the process instead of trying to change a budget afterwards that has already been discussed aggressively/vocally, reported about in the news media, and officially voted in.
Change is always hard but none of the towns around us have curbside pickup and they all manage to get their trash and recycles to the landfill. Taxpayers in Jay no longer can afford to have this luxury.
Good point, Michael.
I do not live in jay and am glad I do not but there are many elderly people who do not own cars or have anyone to take their grbge to the dump for them and they cannot afford to hire someone every week to do it for them. If the town does not pay Archies to do curbside it will not be long before garbage will be piling up on the curb nd the town will look like a dump
So because someone is older, poor, or doesn’t have anyone to help it is the town’s responsibility to ensure their garbage is picked up weekly? Who does the grocery shopping (or other shopping to create their garbage), takes them to doctor’s appointments, pays their bills, gets their medications? For those with restrictions for whatever the reason–smaller bags work just fine. The town has made progress to make cuts as the majority of taxpayers have requested–we have lost funding to a police officer position, cuts with the fire department among other cuts, yet people feel the need to have money replaced for trash pickup—priorities people! There are multiple municipalities around the area that do not offer this service and there isn’t trash piles on the street corners and somehow the people manage to get their goodies to the dump–let the service go and die like it should have years ago.
I am a voter,tax payer and resident of Jay. The Curbside has already been voted on and put to bed. As I read the articles of the town (like the constitution) to reverse this it would require a town wide special vote. I believe the select board will have to let it stand and if people really want it back next year they can ask for it to be put back in the budget and let it get voted on next year. I believe Jay still has a long way to go to get the Municipal and School budgets to a place where people can afford to stay in Jay.
Susie, your math is correct, it the equation is incorrect. Rather than dividing by residents, I think you will find that dividing the costs amongst households (~2000, recent census) a more accurate number.
Marge, no, sorry but just no. Drive around to any number of neighboring towns who do not, nor have not ever, had curbside trash pickup. Save money where ou can. The corporate, powers to be, at Verso couldn’t care less bout the community.