Tonight the Lowell City Council will hold a special meeting to begin the approval process for the Fiscal Year 2025 budget.

If social media, talk radio and “inside” chatter are to be believed, the main points of contention for councilors and residents, respectively, figure to be ARPA funding for the new MIS positions and the huge increase in trash fees.

In regards to the MIS positions, I’ll let the experts debate whether it’s better to use a year or two of ARPA funding to pay for the slots, or if it’s best to just bite the bullet and stick them on the tax rolls right away.

Assuming you’re going to keep every single one of those positions even after ARPA money well runs dry, the taxpayers will end up footing the bill anyway, so unless the plan is to eliminate the newly created jobs when the ARPA money runs out, why not prolong the tax bill pain as long as you can?

Again, whether all of those jobs are necessary is a debate I’ll leave for those who get paid big bucks to make those decisions, or the councilors whose job it is to supervise them. I can be swayed either way.

I’ve written about the trash fee previously and much like the MIS budget, one way or another, taxpayers will foot the bill as part of a much larger trash fee or as part of a larger property tax bill.

Personally, I think the fairest way is for the cost to be born by those who use it.

At InsideLowell, we pay rent to a commercial landlord, who supplies a dumpster for his tenants. That dumpster cost is worked into our monthly rent.

At my family’s restaurant, we pay for our own dumpster, which comes at a higher price tag in just one month than Lowell’s yearly residential trash fee, even with that proposed fee hike.

In other words, commercial properties and large residential complexes that cannot use the city’s trash and recycling services have been subsidizing them on top of their own “trash fee” because the existing residential charge doesn’t come close to covering the costs of trash, recycling and yard waste services throughout the year.

But again, someone is going to foot the bill. That someone is the taxpayers of Lowell. Pick your poison. I’ll zip it and pay either way.

That’s why as someone always up for trying creative solutions, especially if they create tax savings, I was intrigued by a recent news story out of Pensacola, Florida;

https://weartv.com/news/local/pensacola-to-relaunch-recycling-as-paid-subscription-service-aiming-to-reduce-waste

Basically, it’s a pay to play system.

You want recycling? Pay for it yourself.

Radical thinking, huh? Except it’s really not. Subscription-based recycling was the subject of a Recycling Magazine article back in 2021 and many communities across the country are listening.

Now you might be surprised to learn that in Massachusetts, cities and towns do not have to offer trash/recycling service. In fact, a few communities actually don’t and you must dispose of your own waste. (preferably not through illegal dumping)

For sanitary and public health reasons, it’s crazy to advocate for that in a city like Lowell. But for recycling, why not? Recycle your heart away if you so choose. If you don’t, you get to save a few bucks. Give people a choice.

Another radical concept in a free society, huh?

Ditto for yard waste removal. You want it? Pay for it.

Why should the residents on Broadway Street, who are lucky to have enough room for a plant, let alone grass or trees, subsidize “John Deere” and his perfectly manicured yard?

There are other ideas worth exploring, such as the “pay as you throw” system many communities in Massachusetts already use.

Worcester, a city similar to Lowell, is one of them. The more trash you produce, the more you pay to dispose of it.

The point is, you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. The cost of delivering government services to the people is skyrocketing, much as everything else in our post-pandemic life has.

You want (demand?) certain services? Then pay for them.

You want to keep taxes as low as possible? Then be prepared to give up certain things you’re used to getting.

It’s really not that complicated.