Shenandoah is stepping up enforcement of a trash collection ordinance passed earlier this year and is now pursuing more than $200,000 in unpaid garbage bills.
In January, Shenandoah passed an ordinance that said it would be the only trash hauler for residential properties in the borough.
Solicitor Shane Hobbs said the ordinance needed to be stricter than what it had been in the past. The reason was that too many residents said they had their own hauler but weren’t actually getting rid of their trash or they were using unlicensed haulers to take it away.
“Council wanted to make it harder for people to do that,” Hobbs said. “It was a public welfare problem. It was important to make that ordinance better defined.”
Now, Shenandoah properties must use the borough’s trash hauling service. Shenandoah charges $176 every 6 months per residence for its trash service. There is a five-bag limit every week.
Side Deals
Shenandoah’s attempt at strict enforcement of this new trash hauling ordinance upset some people who clearly were using a hauler of their own.
Last month, Borough Manager Mike Cadau told council members that there are a lot of people saying that they used their own haulers in the past and that “deals had been cut” with them that they didn’t have to pay their borough trash bill.
Shenandoah Mayor Andrew Szczyglak said he vaguely remembers something about those deals that were in place. He wasn’t sure if it was a rule about the contracting of a private hauler but said, “If someone brought up a receipt that they took care of their garbage, they didn’t have to pay the bill.”
Cadau urged residents who had one of these “deals” with the borough in the past that they should bring evidence of it to Borough Hall.
“If anybody has anything that was allowed from my predecessor or the predecessor before him based upon garbage collection, it is important that you bring that up,” Cadau said.
Evidence of those deals will not allow it to be used in the future, he said.
“There’s no grandfather in this (ordinance),” Cadau said.
Unpaid Trash Bills
One of the main reasons Shenandoah is getting strict about enforcing its revised trash ordinance is due to the amount of unpaid bills that have accumulated over the years.
Shenandoah has hired Portnoff Law Associates to collect what it says is more than $200,000 in unpaid trash bills.
Council President Joe Boris said the borough has re-engaged the debt collection firm after the company initially rejected Shenandoah as a client because it was actively trying to get unpaid property taxes from the borough that it hadn’t paid to Shenandoah Valley School District.
Now that that debt has been paid, Boris said, Portnoff has agreed to take Shenandoah on as a client and is actively collecting the unpaid trash bills.
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