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municipalities should indicate in the near future whether they would be willing to <br />devote some staff time to participating in this kind of an effort and MOU. <br />Commissioner Carey said that OCS is looking at middle school <br />sites and the Board of County Commissioners and the OCS Board need to <br />schedule a meeting within the next month. <br />d) Solid Waste Alternative Financing <br />Rod Visser said that each of the four jurisdictions have received a <br />presentation from the SWAB. The SWAB has worked on recommendations on <br />what is needed to supplement the existing solid waste revenue structure. The <br />goal is to do something different from relying on tipping fees to pay far the entire <br />solid waste operation, including the very successful recycling program. The <br />SWAB has developed same proposals for the County Commissioners to <br />consider, but the Board has not had the opportunity to discuss it in depth. The <br />County Commissioners would like feedback from the other jurisdictions. <br />Jacquelyn Gist, a member of the SWAB, encouraged all to look <br />closely at the proposal to have the availability fee. She said that she is in the <br />minority and in favor of exempting from the fee structure non-profit organizations <br />that own and operate multi-family housing. She said that once you get up to <br />$120/year, the non-profit would be billed for all of the units. If you raise these <br />fees on all non-profits, then they will come to the local governments and others to <br />get money to pay for these fees. The other thing about the availability fee is that <br />it is not a tax and it will allow them to exempt people from these fees. She asked <br />the County Commissioners to consider this. <br />Mayor Foy said that the Town of Chapel Hill has been looking into <br />the "pay as you throw" system as a way to decrease the amount of solid waste <br />generated and increase the amount of recycling. Over the last couple of years, <br />because of the transition to County management of the solid waste system, they <br />have held off on instituting the system. They anticipated that it would increase <br />recycling to the level that they might not be able to handle. They would like to <br />move forward with this system and for the County to consider this. <br />Diana McDuffee said that the Town of Carrboro was urging the <br />County Commissioners to go ahead and implement the full fee as soon as <br />possible and eliminate the tip fee that the towns pay. She asked about the status <br />of what the County Commissioners are thinking now. <br />Chair Brown said that there have been no decisions yet. <br />John Link said that the Manager's Budget would propose a menu of <br />options to the Board of County Commissioners. One option is to have no fees on <br />July 1St and enact a fee later on. The Board of County Commissioners will have <br />a list of options, but the staff does not recommend that the Board of County <br />Commissioners raise the tipping fees. <br />Diana McDuffee said that in Carrboro, they have looked at moving <br />the charges for collection out of the tax base and they are interested in how the <br />Board of County Commissioners would handle the solid waste fee. She said that <br />they are interested in the opportunities that implementing this fee allows for <br />