A Jacksonville city councilmans draft bill designed to resolve a bitter landfill fee dispute between the city and Atlantic and Neptune beaches has instead caused more divisiveness as Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown described the legislation as unfair and costly for anyone not living at the Beaches.

City Council President Bill Gulliford, who wrote the draft and whose district covers the Beaches, and beaches mayors impacted by the dispute accused Brown and his administration of failing to understand the needs of the coastal communities.

A letter Brown sent to the mayors of the two communities Wednesday said the draft bill does not address several remedies proposed by the city to help resolve an impasse in which Jacksonville says Atlantic Beach and Neptune Beach owe it more than $1.4 million in tipping fees for solid waste dumped at the Trail Ridge Landfill since 2011. Jacksonville Beach does not have such an agreement with Jacksonville.

Jacksonville officials, as part of the consolidated county government, began charging the two coastal communities after the City Council added the fee to the budget. Jacksonville says about $370,000 annually from Atlantic Beach and $200,000 from Neptune Beach pays for using the landfill. But the two smaller cities complained about a variety of problems with the fees, including fears over hidden charges.

The city officials said the proposed bill only covers a proposal for Jacksonville to expand its garbage collection into the two coastal cities.

That proposal would negate the need in the future for the two smaller cities to pay the fee for private contractors to dump residential garbage in the landfill. Jacksonville would charge the cities $12.65 per household for monthly garbage collection by its haulers, the same fee paid by Jacksonville residents.

The $12.65 charge would then be passed on to their residential customers as part of their current garbage fee: $17.78 in Atlantic Beach and $22 a month in Neptune.

But Jim Robinson, Jacksonvilles director of public works, said the reduced charge at the beach would still cost Jacksonville taxpayers about $200,000 a year because of the added travel expense for the citys haulers.

Missing from the bill is a proposal to make up that difference and cut the tipping fees owed to the city in half by granting Jacksonville water quality credits for improvements to quality of the St. Johns River that the Beaches cities produced in part by improvements to their wastewater treatment plants, Robinson said.

Jacksonville has planned to use the credits to meet a commitment it made to the state in 2008 to help the health of the St. Johns River.

See original here:

Tipping fee impasse continues between Jacksonville and two coastal cities