Danvers Select Board Members Push For Trash Fee Reconsideration

DANVERS, MA — The $200 per household trash and recycling collection fee debated for months amid Danvers Budget Conference Committee meetings and endorsed in a split Select Board meeting vote two weeks ago was once again a centerpiece of discussion at Tuesday's Select Board meeting with the two dissenting voters requesting a reconsideration and a potential special town meeting to ultimately decide the fee's fate.

The Danvers Budget Conference Committee voted to recommend the fee in October to offset the increased cost of the new collection contract and potentially free up other town resources for needed services. Two weeks ago, Town Manager Steve Bartha asked for the Select Board's endorsement of the fee — while allowing that, according to the town manager's act, he had the authority to implement the fee starting this spring.

The Select Board voted 3-2 to back the town manager with the two dissenting members — Maureen Bernard and Matthew Duggan — addressing their objections again on Tuesday.

"Would the Chair accept a motion for reconsideration of the vote that the Board took?" said Duggan, before being informed that only a Select Board member voting in the affirmative can call for a reconsideration vote.

Duggan said he accepted that as protocol but added: "I do think that it should have gone to a town meeting to have more input, more feedback from elected representatives. ... These fees remind me of when I went to UMass back in the 80s when the trustees at UMass weren't allowed to increase the tuition but they found various methods to impose fees on the students and the totality of the fees exceeded the tuition.

"So, to me, it's just another form of taxation."

Bernard used part of her Select Board member time to advocate for a vote of a special town meeting to decide the trash-fee question.

"It is our town," Bernard said. "These are the residents of the town. And I would like to see — and maybe I need some help from some senior board members on how we go about doing a special town meeting — and then let the floor take it.

"Instead of going under the town manager act, I would like to see a special town meeting vote."

Bernard added that she was "going to look into a little bit more for everybody" through consultation with the town council.

Chair David Mills said that while he respects being stewards of town residents' money, he restated that the $200 fee is "piddling" for the services provided and he does not believe the town and Finance Committee are "wasting" taxpayer money.

"Whether the $200 is a fee or a tax, or whether there is an overreaching of government to reach public funds, I hear that and I respect that," Mills said, "and I'll pay attention to it."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at [email protected]. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)