East Ridge Mayor Brent LambertDebbie Moorefield doesn’t have a problem paying East Ridge $180 each year to collect the garbage at her house. But she’s not happy East Ridge billed her another $180 for garbage pickup at the empty, grassy lot she owns – because there’s no garbage to pick up.
Moorefield and other East Ridge residents packed the City Council meeting this week and argued that they shouldn’t have to pay East Ridge’s new sanitation fee on vacant, unimproved pieces of property.
City council members passed the charge – $180 for homeowners and up to $730 for apartment and duplex owners – in May after Tennessee American Water Co. decided to stop attaching residents’ garbage fees to water bills.
Property owners received the bills, attached to their property taxes, earlier this week.
The problem, residents said, is that the fee is applied to all parcels of property – including undeveloped lots, vacant lots and lots with no street access – properties that usually don’t need garbage or brush pickup.