Free Danvers Trash Barrels: Town Meeting Votes $980K To Supply Them To Residents

DANVERS, MA — A vote of Danvers town meeting members on Monday backed the use of nearly $1 million in surplus funds to pay for residents in single-family and multi-family homes to receive free trash and recycling barrels as part of the town's new collection agreement beginning on July 1.

Town meeting members backed town meeting member Bill Bates' amendment to the article that stripped the Finance Committee's recommendation that the town look to recover the cost of the purchase — essentially requesting that residents be forced to pay for their own barrels.

The Select Board had recommended the use of $980,000 in "free cash" — or excess revenues compared to expenses from previous years — to fund the purchase, with the Finance Committee arguing during its April 27 meeting that the town had higher priorities than paying for trash bins that residents previously purchases themselves.

"It's our money — it's the taxpayers' money," Bates argued on Monday. "We have a brand new rubbish contract that you are going to vote on later on in this budget that increases the budget for rubbish in this town by over $800,000. I feel that the $980,000 in free cash has already been paid by the taxpayers. These barrels are required by the contract."

Select Board Daniel Bennett noted that even had the amendment to the Finance Committee recommendation not passed, the Select Board was only required to "direct the town manager to recoup those costs" but not necessarily charge the residents for the bins.

Select Board member Gardner Trask spoke in favor of the amendment — noting that the nearly $1 million in free cash could not be re-appropriated for another town use until next year's annual town meeting.

"These are commercial-sized trash barrels with crossbars that the arms (of the trash collector truck) grabs," Trask said. "It's not anything you could buy at Home Depot or Lowe's or any of the big box stores. They are special and they are going to be required by the new trash contract."

Each single-family household will receive one 64-gallon trash barrel and one 96-gallon recycle barrel. Bennett noted that the barrels cost about $62 each with some grant funding set to be used to offset the costs.

The free-barrel amendment passed on a voice vote with the appropriation itself passing on a subsequent unanimous vote.

Town Manager Steve Bartha said during Tuesday's Select Board meeting that the bins will be delivered to residents this summer with the automated collection beginning around Labor Day.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)