Council approves price hike for yard waste bags

    The Washington City Council voted to raise the price of the city?s brown yard waste bags from 50 cents to $1 at its meeting Wednesday night. The vote was 4-0 with council members Fred Stark, Merlin Hagie, Mike Roth and Karen Wilson-Johnson voting in the affirmative. Councilmen Russ Zieglowsky abstained and Bob Shepherd was absent.

    Hagie said that the sanitation committee he sits on recommended the price increase because the city is losing money by selling the bags for only 50 cents.

    ?It?s not the intent that this be a huge cash cow,? said Hagie. ?It is still cheaper than surrounding communities such as Iowa City, which charges $1.50 per bag.?

    Mayor Sandra Johnson said that the biggest cost to the city is not supplying the bags but the act of collecting them.

    ?I know people ask me why we charge so much when they can buy the bags very cheaply off the hardware shelf,? said Johnson. ?Simply put, you?re paying for the service of picking the bags up and disposing of them. That?s why we have a logo stamped on them. Those are the ones we take. Otherwise, you take your own brown bags.?

    Zieglowsky, who works at HyVee in Washington, said that the sanitation committee?s recommended price increase ?was not well received by my retail establishment.? 

    ?No one is asking the city to sell to retailers under cost. Nobody does business by selling things below cost,? said Zieglowky. ?If businesses decide not to sell the bags, that means the city may have to sell bags on weekends. The retailers come to city hall to pick up the bags. They don?t ask the city to deliver the bags to them. A lot of retailers provide a service to the city by keeping it clean.?

    Zieglowsky asked the other council members if retailers could be given a discount on the bags. Hagie and Wilson-Johnson said they were against giving them a discount.

    Hagie commented, ?If the retail establishment chooses to make a profit on the bags, they?re welcome to do so, but the cost will be the same for everyone.?

For more, see our May 6 print edition.