Niles Mayor George Alpogianis at the May 23 Village Board meeting defended the village’s recent move to bill separately for garbage collection, rather than lump it in with property taxes, after residents trashed the change on social media.
Under the new system, residents pay Groot, the village’s garbage collection contractor, directly in a quarterly fee totaling just under $53.
Village leaders said at the time they made the change that the move would increase transparency by letting residents know exactly how much they were paying for their garbage collection.
But residents haven’t seen it that way, peppering local social media hubs with complaints and comments about increased tax bills and saying the change caught them off guard.
Ahead of the public comment period, Alpogianis said he wanted to address “the fiasco with the garbage bill” and said the change had not rolled out to the village’s satisfaction, but also arguing that people were spreading misinformation about the bill.
“There’s all kinds of baloney being said about this,” he said. “There is nothing new about this charge; this charge has been on everybody’s tax bill for decades.”
Despite angry comments on social media, only a handful of public commenters spoke about the garbage bill.
Resident Bob Devlin asked what the procedure would be for charging apartment units that weren’t generating garbage at a given time and suggested that the village take a leaf from Darien, Ill.’s playbook and charge by canister of garbage.
Trustees generally do not answer questions during public comment periods, but Alpogianis said the trustees would work to answer Devlin’s questions after the meeting.
Another public commenter, Mike Bartolo, said he was annoyed to have the same garbage fee as larger households when he generated far less trash.
“I put out one can of garbage a week,” he said. “Those buildings they rent to multiple families, they put out five, six cans of garbage a week. You’re asking me to pay the same thing they’re paying.”
And former trustee and regular commenter Louella Preston objected to Alpogianis’ statement that the charge was simply broken out of property tax bills.
“I was at the April board meeting when Mayor Alpogianis talked about the Groot garbage… I went home and I looked at my property tax bill and I could not find a line item for garbage,” she said before going on to inquire whether the village would implement a discount for senior citizens. Currently, seniors are charged the same rate as other residents.
Alpogianis told Preston and other public commenters that more information would be available shortly.