Residents gather thousands of signatures in opposition of garbage roll carts

Columbia residents opposed to roll carts for garbage collection are rolling out the opposition. Solid Waste Advocacy Group showed up at City Hall with 4,084 initiative petition signatures from residents who are against using the roll carts.

Over the past few months, the city held town hall meetings to talk to residents about ways to improve the solid waste utility. One idea presented by the city was to add trash roll carts, but many stood up in opposition, saying they’re cost prohibitive and ugly.

Solid Waste Advocacy Group has been gathering signatures for the past two months and delivered them to the city clerk who has 30 days to review them to ensure all the signatures are from valid Columbia voters.

The group needs 2,567 valid signatures to get the issue in front of the city council. If the council opposes the petition, the issue would go on the ballot. Opponents said they’re confident voters would say no to the roll carts.

“They thought this issue was finished in 2012, and they are frustrated that it was brought back up again when we made ourselves clear last time. They’re saying we don’t want the ugliness. We don’t want to spend $6 million of taxpayer money for this it will be a hardship for many people that have steep driveways,” said Mary Sapp, for Solid Waste Advocacy Group.

If the city clerk finds that the group doesn’t have enough valid signatures, they would have two weeks to gather more.

City staff has suggested waiting about four months to let the petition process to play out before moving forward with any proposal.