It's probably not fair to compare the public policy achievements of Renee Kaufman, a full-time mother of three and part-time nurse, with the professionals who work for Grand Traverse County.
The pros have to fill out forms and do other bureaucratic stuff, after all ...
A few years ago Kaufman sought bids for a required irrigation system certification for her Holiday Hills-area neighborhood of five subdivisions. She got her neighbors a price of $35 per inspection, compared to the $125 a neighbor who missed out on the deal was charged.
Another neighbor recently suggested she look into trash service. So Kaufman polled neighbors and discovered they contracted with three companies -- Waste Management Inc., American Waste and Allied Waste Services. Bills ranged from $176 to almost $300 a year.
"Everyone's rates were different, you could pay one rate and two houses down your neighbor paid a different rate, even though you used the same (company)," Kaufman said.
So she sought bids from all three to service 259 homes; she twice hand-delivered flyers to her neighbors, posted bid information on her Web site and sent out e-mails. The low bid eventually came from American Waste of Kalkaska: $11 a month for pickup of residents' trash and recyclables.
"Instead of having trucks on our streets four days a week, we're getting down to one, and we'll only have trash sitting by the roadside one day a week," Kaufman said. "It's great and it's saving us money."
That is precisely what Traverse City and Garfield Township officials asked the county to do a couple years ago -- create a trash "authority" that would use the buying power of hundreds and hundreds of homes to get better trash service: lower costs; more and better services; and fewer trucks on the street. Nothing happened.
Earlier this month Traverse City commissioners voted to hire a Virgina-based solid waste management consultant company to study the area's waste flow and determine whether a more efficient system could be devised; the county's Resource Recovery Department will pay the $56,000 bill. The study is expected to include at least Garfield and Peninsula townships and the city.
This is not hard stuff. It's the kind of thing local government should be doing for taxpayers without having to be nagged. It should go without saying that saving residents hundreds of dollars a year while providing better service is the aim of every department of every local government.
Grand Traverse County is decades behind the times. We pay the highest tipping fee (the cost of dumping at the local landfill) in the state and service and prices, as Kaufman's poll showed, are all over the place.
It's time for us to get smart, negotiate from a position of strength and get better service and lower bills.
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