Trash Talk: Roseville Citizens League Forum Today

The Roseville Citizens League plans to hold an educational forum this evening exploring the pros and cons of organized trash collection.

The meeting is scheduled from 7 to 9 p.m. (Thursday) at the Fairview Community Center, 1910 County Road B West.

Presenters at the forum include: Doug Root, trash project coordinator for the Roseville Citizens League; Susan Naughton, staff attorney at the League of Minnesota Cities; Little Canada City Administrator Joel Hanson; Maplewood City Councilman John Nephew; Scott Duddeck, North St. Paul director of public works; and Richard Lambert, chairman of the Roseville Citizens League.  

Thomas Gmeinder, a St. Paul arbitration and mediation lawyer, is scheduled to moderate the forum. 

Currently, there are several licensed garbage haulers serving Roseville. (See http://www.ci.roseville.mn.us/index.aspx?NID=683).

Proponents of organized trash hauling believe that multiple haulers generate more traffic and noise and wear and tear of streets. For example, the cul-de-sac "Irene Circle", just off of Western and Iona Lane in Roseville has nine homes, according to a Citizens League official. But there four different companies that pick up trash on Mondays in that area.

Meanwhile, opponents see single trash haulers for communities as, among other things, an infringement on individual choice and anticompetitive. 

While Roseville has not initiated the statutory process to go to an organized trash hauling system, the city’s Public Works, Environment and Transportation Commission has been discussing this issue, said Sara Barsel, a member of the Roseville Citziens League’s board of directors.  

Roseville is not a stranger to the single trash hauler issue. Several years ago, the Roseville-Maplewood-Falcon Heights League of Women Voters went on record supporting a single trash hauler system.

For further information about organized trash hauling, see http://www.rosevillecl.org/. The Roseville Citizens League is a private group and is not part of Roseville City government.