Leaf and brush collection fee

A former councilmember who thanked the council for its diligence but urged rejection of the fee, calling it a slippery slope and saying more creative approaches exist.

A 79-year-old who bags and hauls her own yard waste called the $160-a-year fee 'ridiculous' and unfair to people who never use the service.

Called the fee 'an idea so dumb that everybody you talk to goes, yeah, that doesn't make sense' — warned mandatory fees would drive people to drop trash service or stop using pickup, hurting the landfill-minimization goal.

A recent transplant from Dallas and Chicago said fee inflation was one of the biggest complaints about big cities and said a downturn is the wrong time to add fees.

Rejected the 'free service' framing, citing the sanitation fund in utility bills; questioned why the fee would raise $731,000 against a budgeted $380,000 deficit, and asked the city to either reject the fee or postpone until after the election.

A former councilmember who worried the fee would hurt people living paycheck to paycheck and asked that any revenue be reflected in lower tax rates in future budgets.