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22 <br />MEMORANDUM <br />TO: Orange County Board of Commissioners <br />FROM: Roger Barr, Chair <br />Solid Waste Advisory Board <br />SUBJECT: Digest of SWAB Comments on Chapel Hill's PAYT Proposal <br />DATE: March 8, 2001 <br />At our ranuary meeting, we discussed a response to the Town of Chapel Hill's <br />memorandum analyzing Pay As You Throw (volume-based waste disposal) in the Chapel <br />Hill residential sector. This memorandum summarizesour comments and concerns with <br />respect to Chapel Hill's proposal. The overall message was that the SWAB reached no <br />clear consensus position on endorsing or~opposing PAYT in the Chapel Hill residential <br />sector. <br />The SWAB discussed PAYT extensively; the following themes emerged from the <br />discussion: <br />• There were overall protocol concerns regarding how to discuss this (and other issues) <br />with other government entities including: <br />- is the SWAB to communicate directly with the Town of Chapel Hill and with <br />whom in the Town if at all, <br />- what the interest of the SWAB is in the Town's policies, <br />- the relationship of the Town to its SWAB members in terms of communicating <br />Town solid waste policy concerns, i.e. is the Town providing the SWAB members <br />with its intentions to communicate to the SWAB or are SWAB members acting <br />on their own, <br />- what is the relationship of the Town's SWAB members to the SWAB as a whole <br />i.e. are the acting as individuals from the jurisdiction of Chapel Hill or are they <br />representing a clear Town policy position to the remainder of the SWAB. <br />The PAYT concept could succeed if done in the proper sequence and in coordination <br />with the other Orange County governments. There were concerns about a single <br />government undertaking this policy in a single sector only. <br />• There is concern about waste crossing jurisdiction boundaries or sectoral boundaries <br />(i.e. into commercial dumpsters) or otherwise being dumped illegally so people can <br />avoid paying the fees. <br />• Issues of equity were raised over the PAYT concept and also whether using this <br />method of raising funds constituted "double taxation" if the Town continued to <br />