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Serious questions have been raised about whether a million dollar grant influenced council’s decision to scrap Wagga’s weekly garbage service.
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The move to prioritise the environment over the results of a community survey has been criticised by councillors and Wes Fang, head of Wagga’s ratepayers group, who asked whether the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) grant swayed the decision.
“A clear outline and timeline of what has occurred, when agreements were made and why the organisation has chosen to ignore the wishes of ratepayers is required from council,” Mr Fang said.
“I spoke to a community group on Monday night and what was supposed to be a 20 minute discussion turned into nearly an hour of questions about the transparency and accountability of council.”
There has been a massive public backlash over the changes, which will see weekly general waste collection dumped in favour of a weekly food organics (FOGO) service. The outrage has centred on a perceived lack of consultation, despite council’s claim that it sent surveys to every home in 2015, along with the way those survey results were handled.
The “Tipping Point” survey found close to two-thirds of people supported the introduction of FOGO at no extra cost to ratepayers, while a similar number opposed reducing general waste collection from weekly to fortnightly.
According to Mr Fang, the timing of the EPA grant needed explanation. It was applied for in December, 2015 and agreed to in April, 2016, several months before councillors voted to adopt the waste management changes late last year.
A spokeswoman for the EPA confirmed council had already been given the majority of the grant, which was intended to supply every home with a kitchen caddy as part of the FOGO system and to pay for a public education campaign.
“The fact that there was a grant for the implementation of ‘FOGO’ prior to the councillors even voting to adopt it needs to be explained to ratepayers,” Mr Fang said.
“It appears council has taken it upon itself to weight FOGO over other community priorities and has not sought further consultation.”
However, council commercial operations manager Caroline Angel said it was not possible to introduce the weekly FOGO service alongside a weekly general waste service while keeping costs to a minimum.
“In drafting the tender documents for the proposed system, the City of Wagga has sought to balance the expectations of the community with best practice systems already in place across NSW and Victoria,” Ms Angel said.
“There are long-term cost savings associated with introducing a FOGO service as it reduces waste to landfill and prolongs the life of existing waste cells at Gregadoo Waste Management Centre.
“Current estimates for a new waste cell is more than $4 million and would need to be constructed every four to five years based on the amount of waste currently going to landfill.”
Albury, Coolamon, Gundagai and Young councils were also given EPA grants of between $21,000 and $278,000.