By Tim McCarthy
tmccarthy@hgazette.com
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Downtown businesses have won a chance to be heard about changes in city trash regulations that will take away municipal rubbish collection.
Councilor William Ryan asked whether the rules change, which restricted the number of barrels that could be put at the curb and increased fines for violations, was a way for the city to increase revenue and to bully people into participating in the city's new single-stream curbside recycling program.
Ryan said it appears the rules, scheduled to go into effect on Sept. 13, are directly related to covering the cost of recycling.
"You have to look at this change as another hidden tax," he said. "We are making it impossible for the average citizen to live in Haverhill. We have to find new and innovative ways to run our city."
Flanked by members of Team Haverhill and the Haverhill Trash and Recycling Task Force, Mayor James Fiorentini shot back at the accusations saying he was outraged at Ryan's suggestion that the city dismantle the fledgling program.
"My answer is simple. No," Fiorentini said. "I'm proud to have been the mayor that put this in," he said. "I will not stop it and will not repeal it."
Other councilors, while sharing the belief in keeping single stream recycling a part of Haverhill, were tempered in their support of the policy changes that were enacted by the Board of Health, specifically with the elimination of downtown trash pickup.
Councilor Michael Young questioned why the regulations were changed after the city's 2011 fiscal year budget had already factored in items such as business trash pickup.
"I don't like what its doing to our small business community," he said. "I think it's only fair it continues this fiscal year. We thought what we passed would stay intact."
The issue will now go before a City Council subcommittee for more discussion, but the changes stand.
Greater Haverhill Chamber of Commerce President James Jajuga said local businesses would face a whole new series of headaches when the city requires them to maintain their own Dumpsters.
"What are we saying to the downtown businesses," Jajuga asked. "A lot of those are hanging on by a thread."
Councilor Sven Amirian criticized the timing for the health board's announcement, believing it muddied the issue with the new recycling program, but added that his support for the single-stream program would not waver.
"Haverhill cannot return to the stone age of waste management," he said.
Jack Bevelaqua, chairman of the Trash and Recycling Task Force and a former chairman for the Groveland board of health, said that town adopted the single stream recycling program and the suspension of business trash pickup six years ago.
"We never received one complaint," Bevelaqua said. "It's not draconian."
Bevelaqua said the Haverhill task force learned many businesses outside the downtown district contract their own waste disposal already.
