Given a second chance, Hannibal voters approved by an almost two-to-one (816-444) margin to keep the city’s recycling program alive Tuesday.
On April 7, voters defeated by 13 votes (565-552) a proposal that would have seen a fee of up to $1 added to the monthly residential utility bills to pay for the program. Under the April proposal, the operation of the program would have been put out for bid.
The latest proposal designated that the fee will be 70 cents per month, per Hannibal home served by the Board of Public Works. It also stated that the Northeast Missouri Sheltered Workshop (NMSW), which has handled the city’s recycling program since August 2007, will operate the city’s recycling program.
A meeting of the NMSW Board turned into a victory celebration Tuesday evening.
“I feel very good,” said John Yancey, volunteer interim manager for the NMSW. “The board meeting ended on a very happy note.”
As a result of the proposal’s passage, it is estimated that the NMSW will see approximately $6,000 a month in revenue. Yancey does not expect the first check to arrive before October.
How will the revenue be used?
“The first thing we’ve got to try to do is to make sure we catch up with most of our equipment. We need more equipment,” said Yancey. “We need more people to work with the program. We need to adjust the wages for the new wage-and-hour law. There’s a lot of things to do with the money. If we didn’t have it we’d probably not be in business.”
The NMSW has three full-time paid supervisors, one part-time supervisor and one volunteer supervisor. It has 33 approved workers. According to Yancey, attendance ranges from 20 to 25 workers on any given day.
Aside from the revenue generated by the recycling program, and whatever other small projects that can be picked up, the NMSW’s income is supplemented by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). According to Yancey, the state pays $17 a day for every worker that works six hours a day.
The cost of Tuesday’s election will be paid by the NMSW. To keep the cost of the election down, a request was made to use paper ballots. Yancey speculated that the cost of the election will run between $6,000 and $8,000.
Yancey was happy with the size of Tuesday’s 1,250 voter turnout.
“I hope we’ll be able to convince those that were not convinced that recycling is worth 70 cents a month,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll be doing a job that will encourage them to accept the 70 cents if it’s ever necessary to ask for it again.”
Tuesday’s proposal is for a three-year period.
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Given a second chance, Hannibal voters approved by an almost two-to-one (816-444) margin to keep the city’s recycling program alive Tuesday.
On April 7, voters defeated by 13 votes (565-552) a proposal that would have seen a fee of up to $1 added to the monthly residential utility bills to pay for the program. Under the April proposal, the operation of the program would have been put out for bid.
The latest proposal designated that the fee will be 70 cents per month, per Hannibal home served by the Board of Public Works. It also stated that the Northeast Missouri Sheltered Workshop (NMSW), which has handled the city’s recycling program since August 2007, will operate the city’s recycling program.
A meeting of the NMSW Board turned into a victory celebration Tuesday evening.
“I feel very good,” said John Yancey, volunteer interim manager for the NMSW. “The board meeting ended on a very happy note.”
As a result of the proposal’s passage, it is estimated that the NMSW will see approximately $6,000 a month in revenue. Yancey does not expect the first check to arrive before October.
How will the revenue be used?
“The first thing we’ve got to try to do is to make sure we catch up with most of our equipment. We need more equipment,” said Yancey. “We need more people to work with the program. We need to adjust the wages for the new wage-and-hour law. There’s a lot of things to do with the money. If we didn’t have it we’d probably not be in business.”
The NMSW has three full-time paid supervisors, one part-time supervisor and one volunteer supervisor. It has 33 approved workers. According to Yancey, attendance ranges from 20 to 25 workers on any given day.
Aside from the revenue generated by the recycling program, and whatever other small projects that can be picked up, the NMSW’s income is supplemented by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). According to Yancey, the state pays $17 a day for every worker that works six hours a day.
The cost of Tuesday’s election will be paid by the NMSW. To keep the cost of the election down, a request was made to use paper ballots. Yancey speculated that the cost of the election will run between $6,000 and $8,000.
Yancey was happy with the size of Tuesday’s 1,250 voter turnout.
“I hope we’ll be able to convince those that were not convinced that recycling is worth 70 cents a month,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll be doing a job that will encourage them to accept the 70 cents if it’s ever necessary to ask for it again.”
Tuesday’s proposal is for a three-year period.
