Seventeen years after Clarence voters threw out a plan to set up a townwide garbage district, the town is recycling the idea.The Town Board has agreed to hire a consultant to study the costs – and benefits – of negotiating an overall contract for garbage pickup in the town.
Clarence is one of two towns in Erie County where property owners make their own contracts with waste haulers, with no role for town government.Town voters in 2006 tossed to the curb a previous attempt to introduce a garbage district. Opponents said they didn’t want the town involved in garbage pickup, and raised concerns about rising costs for seniors and snowbirds.
But Clarence Supervisor Patrick Casilio said the average town homeowner would save money on garbage collection, eliminating disparities of hundreds of dollars a year among neighbors.”There’s such a variance in pricing, a variance in how bulk pickup is being handled, that that’s why I think the town has to look at this again,” Casilio said in an interview. Most communities in Erie County either contract on behalf of their residents with a single hauler for garbage pickup or directly provide refuse pickup as a municipal service.