Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Environmental Committee, Tuesday, May 12, 2026

Date: Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 11m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/4149
Official Board of Supervisors page (Fairfax County): https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-27. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:04] All right. Good afternoon, everyone. I know we've had probably one of our most densely filled days, but we are here for our final committee meeting. Oh, well, full committee meeting. This is our final committee of the full board, of the whole.

[00:00:25] So I will do my best to get us through this efficiently and effectively. You all should, before we turn to the solid waste management update, you all should have received the staff report on climate action progress and the highlights, as well as you have in front of you, the climate action snapshot for spring of 2026.

[00:00:51] I want to just, first of all, thank John Morrill and his whole team. Thank you, John. No more hiding in the back there, but we appreciate you putting this together. I will give a few highlights, and then if you have questions for John, he's not going to do a full presentation today, but if you had any questions on the report that you received.

[00:01:11] And, you know, for me, the dashboard really helps us communicate the way and to learn what's happening. It includes our tree canopy filters to assess heat islands. There's always something new and exciting, as well as some tangible benefits on facilities and our landscapes.

[00:01:29] A few highlights on meaningful progress on the county side, because we have the county side and the community side. On the county side, we have some considerations for sustainability and a resilient trees initiative.

[00:01:45] I know there's been a lot of talk and a lot of groups working with our trees, with planting, and with rescuing, shall we say, our trees. And so there's some additions to the policy plan on that. Our savings. So nine county facilities have achieved $660,000 and more in avoided utility costs in 2025, which is exciting. It's exceeded the total savings target by 125%. So progress, as we said in the last committee, should be celebrated. We're excited to celebrate that. It's not something we do alone, but the pieces we do, I think, are really important to point out.

[00:02:24] and we have nearly doubled our facilities with rooftop solar by the end, we will have by the end of this year. So small steps forward, but all moving appropriately in the right direction. We also saw some achievements in the community, and that is something we track as well. Number one, our greenhouse gas emissions are down 28% over the last 20 years, roughly 20 years, and our transportation emissions, which are the number one emitter of greenhouse gases, were down by 14%, are down 14% since 2005. So there's definitely movement in that direction. And as we continue

[00:03:03] to work, not just as a county, but as a region, nationally, globally, we are and continue to do our little bit to help. And I appreciate that we do what the community does as something that is not as cost neutral or free of cost to the county. So everything we can encourage and incentivized is much appreciated. And we have approximately 7,000 solar installations in the county to date of non-county buildings. So really exciting to see that continue to move forward.

[00:03:35] And also some areas that decrease the burden on our county residents. So first of all, we have our Flood Mitigation Assistance Program, the FMAP, and the Conservation Assistance Program, the cap because we love our projects. And the first year, we dispersed an average of $3,364 per applicant for flood proofing. So yay, as Chris says it. I think all the little things that really help us in the county help us address the needs going forward, but also mitigate impacts

[00:04:12] from the past. And then finally, Switch Together and Solarize Virginia, which have been promoted by the county, increased an uptake with 771 residential solar applications filed in the second half of last year. So I think those are some of the positives and outcomes that my team and I pulled out of the reports. But I want to see if John had anything to add or if any of my colleagues had any questions about either the Climate Action Snapchat or the report that received from staff on the updates.

[00:04:47] Beautiful report. I think we're all excited for the next presentation. And so next up, we-- oh, I apologize. I wanted to go ahead and ask my colleagues if we could accept the summary of the meeting minutes from February 24th if there were any issues or complaints or changes to the minutes.

[00:05:08] All right, seeing none, we will now turn it over to our solid waste management update. We are joined today by Chris Harrington, the Director of the Department of Public Works Environmental Services, and I see that he's brought two of his colleagues here with him today. And this really is to look at an update on the Unified Sanitation District model development. There has been a lot of conversation, and I know, I believe it's Mr. Alcorn who brought forward a board matter for us to really understand where we are. There's also discussion around a sustainability fee and a new food waste recycling authority that will be given to us

[00:05:48] I believe by the state should we choose to use it. So with that I will turn it over to Chris Harrington and his team and I believe this will be quite a lively discussion so I appreciate if my colleagues let me know whenever you do have questions or concerns and I will take note of that. So Chris Harrington. Thank you

[00:06:09] Madam Chair Christopher Harrington director of Public Works and Environmental Services. I'm joined here today by Eric Forbes deputy director and Matt Adams division director relative to the previous presentations. I feel like I didn't bring enough people. But and now for something completely different. So we have three agenda topics two updates to provide and then a question for the board. I'll work through each of them. But please do interrupt me as you wish because we really are here to hear your feedback. As you recall, we'll begin with the first item our unified sanitary district proposal as the board remembers this was

[00:06:45] a recommendation from staff to initiate the required five-year waiting period required by Virginia Commonwealth law before a future board would have the option to assume control for residential waste collection throughout all of Fairfax County we currently only serve with county staff or contractors 10% of residential customers in the county moving to the unified sanitary district five years after the waiting period required by law would have provided the option for additional control over routing, overpricing, and it would have enabled additional options for diversion to achieve the community's sustainability goals that are not available to us now. The last action was

[00:07:24] the direction from the board last summer to conduct the additional forms for our licensed private haulers, as well as for HOA leaders across the county to hear from them. The feedback that we have received from those two events which have been conducted is summarized in your may 1 not in package memo from the county executive it is posted on the reference website there our home page for the unified sanitary district proposal and yes so it is that that summary is there i won't go into to the details other than to say basically it is reaffirmation largely of what we

[00:08:02] had previously heard through the extensive engagement that we've done either through our surveys through the town halls that y'all hosted which we very much appreciate having that opportunity to interact with your constituents and so it is a repeat of basically the same things that we had heard at this point we have no other action items pending before us and so unless we hear differently before the board our intent is to provide clarity to the community and to our licensed haulers by letting them know and posting an update that we're ending development further development of the unified sanitary district proposal so that is our first

[00:08:36] update for today moving on to our fiscal issues there's three key concepts that I want to lay out for the board just to remind you about and then we'll get into the specifics and so flow control is core to our management of solid waste here in Fairfax County it is an industry standard term it does have legal definition for us effectively that means we draw a line around the county boundaries and say a trash generated in Fairfax County has to be disposed of where we say. That is the fundamental aspect of flow control. When haulers or when licensed

[00:09:11] private haulers do not comply with those county code requirements, they are leaking trash out of our system. So when we refer to leakage, we're talking about trash generated in Fairfax County that, contrary to county code, is going somewhere else outside of the county for disposal, generally because it's cheaper. And then lastly, the tip fee. So everyone in Fairfax County fundamentally pays the tip fee, whether you're direct hauling to our facilities at the I-66 transfer station or at the I-95 facility, whether you're paying a private hauler or whether you have county service. So that tip fee is a fundamental component of our system. The problem for us is,

[00:09:50] as you see in the left hand graph, is that our reserve funds for refuse disposal, it's fund four oh one zero five zero four oh one five zero sorry added a zero the refuse disposal fund has had a healthy reserve balance because of our previous co-ownership of now reworld then covanta so the sale of electrons when we were a co-owner of the facility a generated revenue that we put into our piggy bank when we determined when the county decided to relinquish that ownership interest we no longer receive that revenue and we have been spending down that reserve fund over

[00:10:27] time to mitigate increases in the tip fee paid by everyone the reserve fund will become exhausted such that we will have a negative balance will be in the red in fiscal year 2028 so we need to begin planning for future fiscal years effectively now without any that without the reserve fund to offset the increases in tip fees you can see the pattern there on the right our tip fee becomes increasingly more unsustainable with a significant increase, and we are already more expensive than our neighboring jurisdictions in terms of the tip fees available to them for

[00:11:05] public facilities. And so this would only exacerbate the incentive for private haulers to violate county code and take more trash out of the county, robbing revenue of us. Eventually, at some point, the tip fee becomes high enough that it triggers a legal challenge to flow control. If we lose that legal challenge, then it has severe impacts to our ongoing management of the system, as well as additional financial impacts due to our contractual obligations with our waste energy partner and reworld to provide a minimum amount of waste for them. Our proposed solution is to add a new countywide sustainability fee, as we've discussed

[00:11:43] previously, to begin in fiscal year 2028. Based on our available methods to collect this, this would be in partnership with our friends in the Department of Tax Administration. It would be a property value-based ad valorem fee designed to generate approximately $24.5 million. On an average residence, our calculations are that's about $59 per year. You can see in terms of the potential benefits, that enables us to actually start to reduce the tip fee over time, reducing that incentive for leakage, reducing our liability for enabling us to reduce liability such that we can maintain flow control. It enables us to provide a revenue stream such that we can reinvest in the

[00:12:23] system to improve the customer experience and make sure that our facilities are where they need to be to be protective of customers, the employees, and the environment. It does help us, as I mentioned, with flow control and reducing leakage. It also provides the emergency reserves such that we would not otherwise be dependent on the general fund if something bad ever happened at the transfer station with our options or with our hauling operation and it would enable us to do some of the work that we previously talked about with standing up these distributed zero waste centers and other things to make more convenient drop-offs for recyclable commodities for our residents you

[00:13:00] can see in the right hand graph our projections from us with our financial consultants of with what the tip fee would look like with and without the sustainability fee and you can also see how we would utilize the sustainability fee over time to drive decreases in the tip fee.

[00:13:17] The alternative to the new fee as proposed would be severe reductions in current operating expenses and personnel expenses in the refuse disposal fund. We've talked about some of these. None of them are popular. It would be closing both the transfer station and I-95 on Sundays when we're generally not making revenue but providing open, which comes at a cost to us, for the convenience of our customers. We would eliminate all free services. So think all of the Purple Can Club, the electronics waste, household hazardous waste, all of those would no longer be offered for free.

[00:13:53] We would potentially look at workforce reductions, although that comes with corresponding other additional reductions in the level of service. And so that would be a last resort option. We would continue to increase our enforcement to bring in additional revenue from fines and penalties, and then it still would not be enough to close the gap based on the solutions that we've previously identified, and so we would still be needing subsidization for the general fund just for the refuse disposal fund to be made whole. Our last item, I brought you a few, is there is new

[00:14:30] enabling authority from the General Assembly, so Delegate Tran and Senator Suravelle's bills, that basically provide, by ordinance, the ability for the county to require certain large generators, which the bill defines as schools, supermarkets, institutional cafeterias. We believe it also is applicable to restaurants. And so we would, by ordinance, establish a certain threshold. And then in those businesses and schools and institutions that generate more than that threshold would be required through some combination of actions to divert food waste.

[00:15:04] There is an additional provision for certain large businesses about having to find local composting facilities. We see several challenges to the implementation of this new authority. It is not what we had previously seen in prior General Assembly sessions that it would have given us power by ordinance to require food scrap separation for all residential customers, which is where we thought we would see some of the largest diversion. We don't know that this generates the scale of the commodities necessary to create a new market such that we could identify private sector partners or generate the necessary revenue for us to build our own food waste

[00:15:41] processing facility however if you do wish us to proceed in working on this new authority we are asking for some specific direction from the board basically do you want this who's in how long do we have how long what buffer time would you like to provide for the private hauler community and for staff to develop the proposals and then there are some specific provisions in the bill about an undue hardship as providing an exception, and so we would look for some guidance and criteria in how we would shape that definition. That's all I have for you today,

[00:16:18] although those are some hefty topics, and so I welcome any questions or comments. Please, Madam Chair. Sorry, Jennifer Miller, Deputy County Executive. Just to add a little bit onto this last point, we don't mean to come to you and say give us all the parameters of what we could potentially do as an ordinance. Instead, I think what we're saying is we suspect there may not be an appetite, but we are identifying for you that there is an opportunity. We think that there will likely be potential future legislation that would expand households, this to households, where there would be the opportunity for organics and food waste collection. So we suspect that the direction

[00:16:53] would be pulled and see what happens with the legislation next year. Thank you, Jennifer. I was going to open with that. And so I think the one thing that's not on there for the last portion of this, I appreciate the brief agenda, would be the option of continuing to work with our legislators, have Jennifer and Benny and her team continue to try to improve the legislation and the authority given to us in Richmond.

[00:17:21] So as we go through this, these are, I believe, for all three, we'd love your thoughts and opinions. Let me start with saying appreciate the work and especially the outreach and the amount of communication you've had with our stakeholders on the Unified Sanitary District.

[00:17:37] I know some of our stakeholders are here today, and we've heard pretty loudly and pretty clearly that this is not the model that we want to move forward with. So there's always ways to improve that. But we've decoupled that from our other concern that was trying to address that as well, which is coming to that fiscal cliff of our tip fee.

[00:18:00] Thank you for all of the definitions for those of us lay people, the flow control and the leakage and the TIT fee and understanding what it would require. Before I turn over to my colleagues, I have two questions. Number one, if you could answer who would pay the sustainability fee.

[00:18:19] And number two, I believe we've given direction on beginning some of these, such as the enforcement and maybe other areas. if you could tell us a little bit of what's been done and the impact we've seen so far on those areas that we already gave direction. Yes, ma'am. I'll work backwards.

[00:18:37] And so to Deputy County Executive Miller's point, absolutely we're continuing in terms of pursuing the board's legislative agenda to enhance our ability for managing our solid waste system in a way that makes sense for us and the community. So that is a no-regrets option from our perspective, and Jennifer Van E. and her team in government relations has been great in that regard.

[00:18:57] In terms of continuing our enforcement, we are significantly ramping up our enforcement. We've been working with the county attorney to provide more clarity in our enforcement guideline and documents so that the regulated community and we as the regulators know exactly what compliance looks like. And so that has been continuing, consistent with prior board direction, as has all of our efforts to find efficiency savings throughout solid waste.

[00:19:18] And so we have significantly adjusted equipment replacement schedules, other things, to try manage the fiscal challenges that we're facing. To your first question, who would pay the sustainability fee? Everybody. Sorry, one additional one, because looking at 28, and as you said, in 29, where we go in the red, what is the timeline that you need for the board to give you direction?

[00:19:45] Our friends in the Department of Tax Administration have asked for as much time as possible for us to be able to prepare. Obviously, I think we'd be seeking board direction as we go into the fall for us to be able to coordinate with the county executive as he's preparing the fiscal 28 budget for your consideration.

[00:20:02] So the more time that you can give us to develop questions and concerns that I think you probably have around the sustainability fee, the more robust proposal we'll be able to provide you in the county executive's budget. And if need be, I guess it's pretty clear that if it's not through a sustainability fee and I don't think there's appetite for having our fee go higher, It would have to come out of either one-time expenses or somewhere in the general fund.

[00:20:28] So if we wanted, if we needed some more time as a buffer, it would have to come from the general fund. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am, correct. These are self-supporting enterprise funds, and so we charge the cost of our service, and that's what we provide. So absent our ability to further reduce our expenditures, and we don't know that we have, well, we haven't identified the ability to fully close the gap with that, then we would require subsidization from some other source of revenue.

[00:20:56] The general fund seems the most likely, but is obviously problematic for many reasons. Thank you so much, Chris. I will turn to the chairman, and I saw hands on this side first, so I will run here. We'll just go down the line. Yeah, I think the last question is the easiest one. Unless I hear a different opinion from my colleagues, we don't need to waste any more time on that.

[00:21:14] I mean, look, we seek state authority all the time. If it doesn't come out in a form that our staff believes benefits county operations, it doesn't mean we have to take it. And I think waiting for something better is the right answer, and I like the no regrets statement on working with the General Assembly on what our goals actually are and giving us tools that are helpful.

[00:21:39] On the USD, you know, we heard loud and clear from folks, although I still have some concerns with it. I think if it had been structured differently in Richmond, we might have had more success there, to be candid with you. And I think long-term, it would have been in the county residents' interest to pursue a USD-type mechanism.

[00:22:01] And, you know, there was a lot of money and a lot of effort spent on explaining to people why the world was going to end. And that's unfortunate because I don't think it got the fair airing, despite the efforts that staff made, with our everyday citizens understanding what it meant and what it could have meant for them.

[00:22:18] Many of the complaints I get from our residents actually ironically are things that in the USD would have fixed, like why can't we get trash collection sized to what our needs are? Why am I paying the same price as the person next to me who's generating five times as much trash? Why do we need 15 trucks coming down our street every day?

[00:22:36] Those are the very real things that people have actually come up to me and talked about, but when you apply that to something as technical and hard to understand as the USD and something that was lobbied heavily against it's a very hard thing to overcome and that's unfortunate because i think it's a it's a missed opportunity but i understand uh where staff is coming from um i will just say you know i think going back in time just for a moment if you could refresh our memory because you kind of got glossed over but the reserve fund is going down uh you mentioned in part because of the revenue lost at covanta can you just explain that we have some people here on

[00:23:13] the board that are newer might not understand at all what that means. Help us understand how that happened and why that happened. Yes, Chairman McKay. Eric Forbes, Deputy Director with the Department of Public Works and Environmental Services. So when the Ogden-Martin plant was originally constructed in late 80s, beginning in 1990, the county had partial ownership and so had a lot more control of the facility and revenues and price as it went through the years for the operation of the facility. The board had a decision to make per the original agreement to either continue with partial ownership or full ownership with an operator or relinquish that

[00:23:50] ability. And those discussions happened from a time period from 2012 to around about 2014, 2015. 2016 in February is when it actually was relinquished, the county's ownership rights. And at that time, there was money that was generated or had been generated from the plant that was actually transferred from a fund at the time.

[00:24:13] We had another fund called the Kavana Operating Fund, Fund 40160, if you were here at that time. We transferred those funds into our Fund 40150 that we're talking about right now. It was about $50 million, and that was in FY 2018.

[00:24:31] Since then, we've had a number of serious things that happen within the community. We did have a fire every world. We've learned quite a bit about how we have to haul long haul down the road. We also had the global pandemic that changed trash and how we all live. It also changed the pricing and the cost.

[00:24:49] And re-world now, having control of the facility and the pricing, have done what they need to do as a business to stay functional. Unfortunately, that causes our costs to go up. So we had all these rate increases from everything from trucks to personnel. And that reserve that we had, we were spending at a clip of about $10 million per fiscal year to do what was called rate stabilization.

[00:25:12] And so if you look back at our rates for a number of fiscal years, we kept it at a $2 per ton increase. So we went from $78 to $80 to $82. And then we realized, hey, this piggy bank is getting exhausted at that clip of $10 million per year.

[00:25:28] And that's when we started to have this conversation with long-term rate projections, brought in a consultant. We shared that information previously with the board. We brought in another consultant. The same projections that you see here are mirrored from our previous study. And it just goes to show that the board, we have to make a decision on how we manage trash differently because the model that we had with re-world is no longer there.

[00:25:52] And we don't necessarily control our fate in terms of cost for disposal. And that being said, we've passed that through the TIP fee, not only just for the cost of the trash, but of the whole program and operation. So as we modernize and we have outreach and education, we're communicating to the whole of the community for outreach and education.

[00:26:13] That comes at a cost. We also have landfills that we manage that are closed, landfill liabilities that we have to have as a community long term. So this fee isn't necessarily just a fixer now, but how we're going to manage the trash system for the next decade to 20 years in the future.

[00:26:32] And it allows us to regulate the cost more so than passing it through to the hauler as well. So I'm going off on a tangent, but the fee is critical for how we operate as a community. So if we set the rate through transparency in our budget process every year, we're not doing it through a tip fee.

[00:26:49] And so a lot of times what we hear through the tip fee process is that is passed directly to the customer from the hauler. And the explanation is the county raised the tip fee again, and we have to raise your rate again. So imagine a system where we're controlling that rate, right, and appropriate to what our investment needs to be.

[00:27:07] And we showed the graph that has the actual tip fee going down over time. With this fee, it affords us that ability. It puts our community in a position. Now we can negotiate in a different way. Instead of saying that tip fee went up, the tip fee is going down. So just imagine that dynamic.

[00:27:24] So the tip fee, to round it all out, is critical. But it's not just for the past and how we got here. It's how are we going to have sustainability in the future going forward. And it is a big decision. So thank you for that. Yeah, no, and I appreciate that technical explanation.

[00:27:40] Let me ask a non-technical everyday resident question. what we're proposing here is to charge everyone $59 to keep their trash in the county help me understand why how you how do you how do you sell that I mean that's like most people when they put their trash in the trash can want it to go to the right place but are they willing to pay more money to make sure it stays within Fairfax County is is kind of a hard sell I mean maybe I'm oversimplifying it but I think part of the answer is and this is what I also wanted to get to is the county has some contractual liability issues with

[00:28:19] re-world. Help us understand what those are and what the consequences would be of reneging on those. Do you want to take that? Yes, I'd be happy to take that again.

[00:28:35] Thank you. So the bigger question is controlling trash and keeping it here in the community and not in my backyard. It's one of those sayings in taking care of our waste here as a community is the responsible thing to do, rather than trucking it down to another community, just in general. So, you know, that is a decision to consider.

[00:28:52] Transportation to the next alternative and the cost is comparable to what we pay to rewool today. And that's because of the business market that we're in. So if we're hauling down to King George County, there's a transportation cost, an environmental impact there. There's also a landfill tip fee cost at that facility.

[00:29:09] And so if we don't operate within the community and that goes out and we are controlling the waste, there's still an equivalent cost. So it makes sense to keep it here, manage it here, and provide that service for here in our residence. Yeah, but if for some reason that didn't happen, imagine for a moment you had no control over that, but you still had this contract that we have with ReWorld.

[00:29:34] What would be the consequences? So the consequence there, it's very explicit, and it's an equation, and it's called a waste disposal agreement that we have with ReWorld. And it is a penalty that we would pay per ton. For every ton that we don't provide to them, our number for the year is 650,000 tons.

[00:29:51] So that's a lot of waste. It's 95% of that 650,000 that we have to provide to re-world without penalty. So if we provide anything less than 617,500 tons, we are penalized at a per ton cost. But it's not just the cost per ton that we would pay re-world.

[00:30:10] It's also their energy revenue that they don't get from not burning that trash. And there's a complicated equation within the agreement that spells that out. But it's things like their energy net revenue, their energy recs.

[00:30:26] It is a factor that they put in this equation and add it to the cost for that tonnage. And that's what they charge us. So I asked that series of questions, one, to help everybody understand where we are. But two, what concerns me, I will be blunt with you, is we put out there the USDA idea.

[00:30:49] It went south for communication reasons, because it was hard to explain to people and to have all the state hoops to jump through to be able to achieve it, for lack of a more, just to try to get to a short explanation for it. There are a lot of other reasons, but let's just assume that it was a communication problem.

[00:31:08] We're now proposing to charge people a $59 fee and have a harder ability to explain to people why. Because what you just explained, I understand. But if it was hard for the public to understand the USD proposal, imagine how hard it's going to be for them to understand what you just explained to us well.

[00:31:30] As people who do this, we know this. And so, you know, one, I don't think we're ready for a fee. frankly in this fiscal environment with as many people as we have in our county struggling but two i think we need time to figure out how you explain that fee to people in a very basic way and help the board understand long term and i appreciate this chart goes to 2032 um yeah you've shown us to 2029 on the one and 2032 on the other chart i just would like to see

[00:32:04] that over a longer period of time because once you implement a fee like this, you're locked in. You know, you're making presumptions over future expenditures, you're making presumptions over future budgets that I think we need a better explanation on. And then the last thing I will ask, and this is controversial and I'm not suggesting we do this by any means, so I want everybody to calm down when you hear this. The recommended reductions I don't think are ever going to pass muster here, as you well said. The support from the general fund piece, I would love

[00:32:39] to know for other peer jurisdictions who are running similar services to ours, are they drawing down from their general fund to be able to support? This has always been an enterprise fund in the county, and we had hoped it would always stay an enterprise fund in the county, but the reality is is facing stress tests that are beyond your control right now, and I'm just wondering, we can't be the only people that have this challenge. And regardless of how the trash collectors convey to their customers why fees are going up, because I hear what you're saying. I've gotten those notices. It's always the county's fault, the tipping fee. Then I get other ones that say gas

[00:33:18] is expensive. And then I got other increases that give me no explanation. So I think it's also going to be hard to convince county residents that if you pay $59 a year, you have some type of guarantee in the future over rate increases that the private haulers might charge you. And if that's part of the selling point on this, I'm having a hard time in my own mind understanding how that would materialize.

[00:33:44] Chairman, thank you for that direction. That's very helpful. We appreciate that. Fundamentally, you're right. I failed in communication to help the community understand what the Unified Sanitary District was. You didn't fail in doing that. That would have unlocked additional sustainability options for us to achieve the community's environmental and Climate Action Plan, right? So CCAP would have been achievable through the USD window. The sustainability fee fundamentally enables us to maintain control of the solid waste system here in Fairfax County while providing an opportunity for us to enhance the customer experience, try to lower that tip fee over time to protect against challenges to flow control and to open

[00:34:21] new opportunities for diversion consistent with CCAP. So we have no ability to do that fundamentally at scale otherwise. Yeah. And I think that's important for us to understand entering this is the fee, whether you're for or against it, hearing it, you know, this is relatively new. We had heard previews of this in the past, but not a formal proposal is that it's very conceivable that you would implement this fee and the cost for people to get their trash hauled away by private haulers will continue to exponentially grow, whether we had the fee or not. It is conceivable that. And part of the USD could have put some barricades

[00:34:59] around that to a certain extent, at least in getting volume buying power for customers and having them have some help. And so, you know, I think this is harder to explain. I do think this will get just as much pushback from the community as the previous proposal got. And I think if we do take it out for conversation we need to answer my initial question which is a very kind of simple homeowner to homeowner how you explain this and what they get out of this or what they could potentially get out of this but but my sense is right now is not the right time to charge the fee

[00:35:36] so I'm also interested in hearing how other jurisdictions are dealing with this and then particularly one that have shared services like we have where we run some of our own services and we have private haulers running services, do those systems have to rely on continued contributions from the general fund, or do they exist mostly as enterprise systems?

[00:35:56] I would just like to see some range of information on that. We have that information we'd be happy to share. We know that there are systems like this. Prince William has a sustainability fee, fundamentally, and a tip fee. And so their tip fee is lower because they have the sustainability fee or its equivalent.

[00:36:12] We're actively talking. We just had a fantastic conversation with our friends in Montgomery County. So we've been pulling that research in, and we will provide an update. Yeah, and just help me, the last piece, just to make sure it's clear on here. If we went the route of subsidizing from the general fund, how outside of the norm is that for operations similar to ours?

[00:36:31] We'll pull that information for you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm actually going to switch it up and start at the other end, if that's okay, Jimmy. But before I do, I think what I'm hearing so far is there is to ask for more information.

[00:36:46] So if you do want more information, and I think being able to understand comparable districts and what is happening across the board, this is a pretty large decision and shift that you're asking us to do. So I appreciate all the questions from the chairman. Go ahead. Jimmy, Supervisor Bierman.

[00:37:02] Jimmy's fine. So ad sustainability fee in fiscal year 2028 talks about generating $24.5 million annually, but the alternative to the new fee is about $14 million. what's the extra $10 million that you're – what do you do with the extra $10 million?

[00:37:21] Those would be for all of the additional sustainability activities that Eric mentioned, education outreach, the zero-waste centers that we've proposed. So it would be what we would be attempting to do to achieve the diversion goals of CCAP fundamentally because we'd be eliminating free services. We wouldn't be adding more. But also, if you look at the ad sustainability fee in fiscal year 2028, that first year with $59 sustainability fee, the tipping fee only goes down $10. The next year with a $70 sustainability fee, the tipping fee only goes down $26. The next year with 81. I mean, it's overshooting on every one of these, correct? Because we have to rebuild the reserve fund that

[00:37:59] would be exhausted to cover some of the contingencies that Mr. Forbes mentioned. And then on the page before, add sustainability fee in fiscal year 2028. So fiscal year 2026, were at a tipping fee of $90, correct? Is that right?

[00:38:15] Numbers, but you're looking at it, so I trust you. Okay, that's okay. Yes. But by 2029, the tipping fee would go up to $119, 90, 100. That's $29 over three years, but that's a whole lot less than $59 each year, correct?

[00:38:33] So I think we can provide that fiscal analysis that you're fundamentally seeking here. We appreciate the perspective that you're offering. Yeah, my perspective is just that we're trying to solve. So here's the problem. We all know it. We increase the tipping fees. They increase their charges. Then we get blamed for every bit of their charges, not just the tipping fees. Sorry, guys. You know it's true. But the fact of the matter is that we are still overshooting on this one without an analysis of the leakage incentive correction that

[00:39:09] would also be an added aspect of not having our tipping fee increase. I will say that on the ad sustainability fee in fiscal year 2028 and the other alternatives, increased code enforcement fines.

[00:39:26] If we can get $2 million more out of code enforcement fines, let's increase those fines. I mean, again, industry right here. You guys don't want to break the law, right? Okay, great. Well, let's do that for the next budget cycle. That's $2 million more. I think we're waiting. Thank you. I appreciate that. Please let me know if you do have something. All right supervisor store Oh, sorry, that's my hyzer. Yeah, so I just one really quick question to piggyback on that. I I'll just say first I'll put out I think without some really good robust communications and engagement plan on this I'm Uncomfortable because I'm worried. It's gonna go down the same path

[00:40:03] Right, and so I think that would be important to have before we even tried to roll this out so that's the first piece second piece why the increase it goes from 59 to 70 to 81 by 2030 i'm just kind of and then it sort of levels out why that sort of rapid increase in the earlier years thank you supervisor absolutely agree just to be clear on the communication and outreach components but our time i think it's really important to understand we have no more flexibility. We have exhausted our resources at this point. So we are very careful

[00:40:41] in how we allocate our very finite time. And so that was why we're coming here. If this is not something that is the board's pleasure, we will not allocate that time towards it. If you want more information, we're happy to share the expert financial advice that our consultant has already prepared for us that led to some of these numbers. And we can get into a deeper dive into some of the patterns that you're asking questions about. Fundamentally, our objective with the fee would be to rebuild the reserve, enable us to reduce the tip fee, enable us to start providing the additional sustainability benefits that the tip fee would open up, and to achieve the economic flow control by reducing the incentive for folks to take waste out of county because it would be

[00:41:20] more expensive to dispose of it in county. I appreciate that, and I think you listed several other items that we would have to potentially remove if we weren't able to do this, right? the glass recycling and a few other I think that's an important piece of that communications of like here's how we got here here are the options we do this fee here's how it benefits us we don't do this fee here's what we're potentially I think that's an important piece for us to be able to help I mean I don't know where the board's going to land at all but if we move forward with this I don't feel comfortable unless I can really explain it well so thank you agreed and to your

[00:41:55] point into the chairman's point on what does this provide, the challenges that we've, for the last decade, while we have this reserve, been providing that at a cost, and that cost was more than we were covering in the tipping fee. But there are a number of elements that we can point out that we provide that other jurisdictions do not. There are many jurisdictions that are not open on Sundays that don't provide some of the educational services that we do that don't provide free household waste materials. So there are a number of communication elements I think that we can point out thank you uh supervisor stork okay thank you and and count me as somebody who is

[00:42:32] deeply committed to what this board said it would do which is to get to zero waste and to get to zero waste by 2030 and 2040 we had different time frames but that's where i'm from that's where i'm going that's what i'm expecting that's what i'm looking for solutions on how do we get there i realize that we've had there's different ways of doing that i get all that the way that i hope we do that is kind of how we've identified, which is to recycling and organics, et cetera, you name it.

[00:43:03] I don't understand why we don't pull the trigger on this five-year window that's keeping, that's holding us back. That's where I'm at. I realize that maybe not everybody's there. I'm there because I know that we're going to hear the screams and cries, et cetera, of all the business people that potentially, potentially, and that's in quotes, could be affected. But I also know that as a business person, that's kind of my job, right? I want to first and foremost make sure that I don't lose what I already have, even though I may gain a whole lot more in a new system. So count me in as somebody who strongly still supports starting that five-year window.

[00:43:42] Call it what you want. I don't care. But I want to start that five-year clock and then have those discussions, which we could take one, two, three, theoretically, I guess, five years to make a decision because we don't necessarily have to change it at five years. We just can't do anything until that five-year wind is up. So I think that's the fundamental issue that this board needs to grapple with right now is why would we allow ourselves to continue to be held hostage to a state law that makes sure that we have to give people five years notice about something that we don't even know necessarily what it's going to be. Let's start that clock. Let's start the process

[00:44:19] and recognize that we have to educate people, and particularly the folks who, like an individual in my community who was anti-USD, said, I don't want that, blah, blah, blah, and gone on and on about it. And then the next meeting I saw him, he was complaining because in Mount Vernon District, you have your solid waste charge comes up in your tax bill, complaining about how much his solid ways to charge this one up. And my response to him was, well, wait a second. Your bill went up, but you're not willing to look at other options. Do you not understand the two of these? And he was silent after that because he didn't really understand this. So count me in as that. I am not

[00:44:55] done talking about it. I think it's important that we take on this five-year window and we get something started and do it in a way that helps our folks understand that we're not taking anything away. We don't know. We're just going to say we're going to go down this road and we're happy to engage you fully in getting and where that needs to go after that so thank you i'm supervisor stork um as soon as the board directs us to move forward in whatever direction that's the direction we're going to take i understand you just heard my loud opinion thank you uh thank you all supervisor alcorn uh thank you madam chair so um i want to build on

[00:45:34] your question a little bit um supervisor stork you know noted that his top priority is zero waste and improving our recycling. How do we, and I believe that's also a countywide goal.

[00:45:50] I mean, that's our long-term North Star. I'm just curious, how do we reconcile that with this contract we have with ReWorld where we have to provide 617,000 tons a year? So the directions for sustainability, diversion, and CCAP are not achievable to us now.

[00:46:10] So fundamentally, our system is what it is and will be that for the foreseeable future. We have a contract and lease agreement with ReWorld through 2031. We're in the process of renegotiating that so that they will always be, for the foreseeable future, a key component.

[00:46:27] I think if we had started, if we knew we were moving down the USD pathway, the negotiations with ReWorld would have looked very different because we would have been creating a pathway for us to phase out our reliance on them into the future. Absent USD, the system is as it exists today, and we're trying to, as you see by bringing forward what we certainly understand to be a very unpopular proposal with the community, we're just trying to save the system as it exists today.

[00:46:52] I appreciate that, and thank you, Chris, for being so open about it. Just as a reminder, we really had this initial discussion, at least at the board level, about the USDs, about the collection side. What I think is perhaps even more pressing right now is the back end.

[00:47:13] So it's basically the costs associated with our transfer station operations, the costs associated with any possible penalties that we might have to pay, leakage. This is all the back end stuff. So I just want to go a little bit deeper onto that.

[00:47:31] But before I do, I do want to note, I appreciate, Supervisor Stork, your comment about basically you're still hoping, you know, we go forward. You know, individual conversations I've had with board members, there is interest in solving some of the collection issues in some neighborhoods, at least, in I think many districts. So it may not be the fully comprehensive USD proposal that staff wanted, but the chairman's right. I mean, I hear about this from a number of

[00:48:03] constituents, people paying a retail price and not part of a wholesale system, the multiple carriers coming through. I mean, it varies, but I definitely get complaints from residents who want a more, frankly, coordinated system. So I don't want to forever lose sight of that, but I do want of dive a little bit deeper on the back end stuff so Chris you you've explained

[00:48:35] basically you know how how we fund our solid waste program what are the prime what are the biggest expenses in that program we're happy to provide the budget narrative for fun for oh one five oh but it is operating expenses so it is the hauling operation and the disposal fees that we're paying the next largest component of that fund would be and if you have it by a percentage we can break it out I saw operating it would be personnel yeah I read that personnel would be number two correctness my understanding is well let me just ask how many tractor trailers are we operating to take trash from the

[00:49:14] transfer station to 95 if you have the number off the top of your head go for it it's a combination of county vehicles with count driven by county employees as well as contracted resources and contracted equipment and so that is a a variable number on a daily basis, depending on what's going on, where we have to move the trash.

[00:49:32] My understanding is we have several dozen tractor trailers. Is that right? Several dozen? That is correct, sir. Okay. There are a couple of red flags that I just want to note because it seems very clear to me that we have a more expensive cost structure than we have revenues. I mean, that's our problem fundamentally on the back end.

[00:49:58] We're spending more than we have money coming in, and we've been basically paying down what we've been calling a reserve, although I did see that in an old line of business document, you know, rate stabilization fund was how it was described, you know, back then.

[00:50:15] Not very stable today. I would also note that back then the sales pitch was we were paying below market rates for our tip fees at the time. So now we've kind of, I'm afraid, come full circle.

[00:50:32] But I want to dive a little bit deeper into our cost structure. So we have dozens of tractor trailers. There are two really big red flags that jump out at me about how our existing cost structure and operations are set up. First of all, those trucks inherently, because they're taking trash from the transfer station to I-95, they're empty half the time, right?

[00:50:57] I mean, there's no backhauling operation. So, yeah, so they basically go down full, they come back empty. Logistically, that's kind of a no-no and a nightmare, but I get it. You know, that's just how it's set up. The other piece, which is a huge red flag, with solid waste, anytime you touch it, it costs money.

[00:51:18] And so what we're doing is we're taking trash from all the independent haulers, you know, mostly in central and northern Fairfax County that are coming to the transfer station and then basically putting it on a floor and then compacting it, loading it in those tractor trailers at our costs, on our dime, and then trucking it 17 miles to the re-world facility at a tremendous expense.

[00:51:51] How much is that costing us, just the transfer part? $10 million a year? $15? Do we know? Yes, Eric Forbes, $16 million is our estimate for the transfer. $16 million to maintain the system that, frankly, is no longer cost competitive in the regional market.

[00:52:12] So that's, to me, that's fundamentally our problem. We've got leakage as we try to now catch up on covering our costs because our revenues, you know, our fees are going to have to go up and it has been going up. So we've got leakage. I think we've got to actually take a look at changing how we do this because I'm not sure we can afford to continue to run the back end.

[00:52:37] I'm not talking about the stuff, the consumer-facing stuff at the 66 transfer station that's been offered up as a possible cut. But on the back end, I'm not sure we can continue to afford that cost structure over the long term.

[00:52:53] Now, I know we have to feed the beast. We have to feed re-world, you know, at least for the foreseeable future, however long that long is, at 650,000 tons or 617. Right now we're getting, what, about 900,000 or about 900,000 tons are going in or is it less?

[00:53:12] How much is it? It is less than that. 700,000 is about it. About 700. Okay. So it's about 700,000. So the one thing, and this is something I want to pass along to the board. I did get a chance to talk to some folks regionally.

[00:53:31] Amazingly, and not surprisingly, we are not the only jurisdiction struggling with solid waste in the DMV. There are other jurisdictions that have made all sorts of decisions. I mean, it's kind of amazing the range of decisions that have been made, you know, by our peers, you know, Montgomery County, PG County, you know, Arlington has its thing, Loudon, Prince William.

[00:53:57] So I would say, you know, before we move forward on an extra fee, the first thing we probably need to ask you to do is to engage with our regional partners for, I think, two fundamental issues.

[00:54:14] One would be, do they have trash that could help feed the beast at re-world, first and foremost? And then second of all, we're already seeing leakage. And I presume this would probably be more in the western and northern parts of the county, although we may not know.

[00:54:33] But frankly, is there an arrangement with some of our neighbors to the west on how they manage it? And maybe we partner up with the Prince William or Loudoun or somebody like that. So we're not shipping it all the way down, you know, past Richmond or crazy landfills way down there.

[00:54:51] I think that would be responsible. look at. Now, the only thing, and I'm fully aware that this is potentially creating challenges on our environmental goals. This basically, because many of our neighbors landfill, they don't send it to energy recovery. So I'm not saying this is the best idea of the world, but frankly, I think it's something we would need to look at and need to have staff explore. Because $16 million a year, Frankly, if we could, you know, cut that, even just cut that back by, you know, half,

[00:55:31] that would go a long way towards making our system sustainable and not running into the issues we're running into. But I think this is so important right now that we've got to figure out the back end before – and then maybe at some point we talk about collection, but those would be my recommendations.

[00:55:52] Thank you. Yeah, before we continue, the chairman and I have been sidebarring. I actually thought you were going to say 2055, 2031 is only, you know, five years away. And so I do think as we get more questions, we'll sit down with you.

[00:56:08] And now that we figured out housing and land use, Jennifer, let's figure out trash. So, but go ahead, Chris. Supervisor, thank you. I appreciate that. I think my concern fundamentally is time. And so, absolutely, we are working through all of the established regional partnerships through COG, through NBRC.

[00:56:26] We have direct contact. We already have reciprocity agreements with Prince William. We understand the other alternatives. I think for us, finding, you know, an alternative for backhauling for 100 tractor trailers from Lorton back to the transfer station a day doesn't, I don't know what that commodity would be. There is not the infrastructure to support direct haul to re-world today at our facility or at theirs.

[00:56:48] And so that would have a significant adverse impact in the system. I think fundamentally, from a first principles perspective, you're absolutely right. The more times you're touching the trash, you're increasing your cost and burden and liability. And we appreciate that. But I think we also have a system that provides flexibility for the private haulers that we, the county, license and depend on for 90% of residential collection and all commercial collection today.

[00:57:11] So I think fundamentally, you're asking great questions. I appreciate that. I would love the luxury of time to do that. I don't, when I look at the charts that we presented, I don't know that I have that time to be able to do that level of analysis, but it is, these are your facilities and it is your system. And so we will obviously, to the county executive's point, comply with the will of the board.

[00:57:29] Well, it seems like we need to look at the short term, right, and then what's a better model is the best long term. Most of us were not here when this contract was signed, right, and created. And so knowing that that's five years away, to me, that's sort of the timeline when we sign again is let's figure out how we get through the next few years.

[00:57:49] Are there any cost cutting and ways that we can support that? I mean, we started a new tax this year. So I think we really need to look at how to make improvements, and we can give you that time, obviously. But it looks like we need a plan of action for figuring out the longer term, and that might require resources.

[00:58:08] Let's continue, then. I'll bring it back to the chairman. I appreciate we have the time on this because this is a big touch. Yeah, I do too. And I think there needs to be a short-term and a long-term look, but we need to pull the long-term back as close to short-term as we can get it because it's a lot of money involved.

[00:58:26] I'm going to start with kind of the happy that we listened to both our residents and haulers and are kind of putting a stake in the USD proposal. I think that's where the board's heading from what I've seen. And the cons clearly outweighed the benefits. I do appreciate the HOAs have the advantage of not having five trucks.

[00:58:50] And if we can find the whole mini-USD kind of thought where you can get communities together to negotiate helps, I think, all of them. It helps the haulers because it reduces the number, the length between trips that makes their job more efficient.

[00:59:09] It makes the residents happier and everything else. So I think there's something in that piece of it But it's not worth it going to a USD model And losing the flexibility what happens during that window and all the other bad things, you know, I I appreciate Supervisor Alcorn's comments on costs and efficiency We we touch I and I appreciate our visit yesterday was on a different subject it was on the Parkway litter but but we talked a lot about solid waste 85% of our

[00:59:44] trash we touch twice so it's that's in that when you when you touch things twice it did drives the cost of maybe not double I think we've got in we we talked about some of the potential solutions we got to get some kind of facility down there so more of it can go directly there which we don't have now which I didn't understand.

[01:00:09] Our trash trucks can't go directly there. Our small trucks, the big trucks, obviously, do go directly there. I think we need to look at efficiencies at I-66. Everything from some of the new technologies where we can process some of it there, and I know you're working on an RFI, but I would speed that up, and I owe you looking at some of the technologies that I'm aware of.

[01:00:36] But I think looking at the more we can process there, the less we have to transport, the less we, I think we need to look at potentially the privatizing the transfer station. I know across the country that those things are run at a cost below what we're running them at.

[01:00:57] And again, moving trash directly to I-95. If I could, just a couple of questions that you're not going to have now. But I think it'd be helpful to see the 10-year history of how much waste we are sending to 66 versus 95, actually 66, 95, and then total if we could.

[01:01:19] And then I noticed in some of the charts that the operating costs kind of changed around 2017. They went up. What drove that increase? And I don't know whether you have the answer now or you want to get that back at a nip. But I'd love to understand what happened in 2017.

[01:01:39] If you. Supervisor Herdy, great question. The presumption is that the contractual arrangement of re-world changed in 2016. Okay. And that's when our rates change for disposal, which is part of our operations cost. And we'll circle back if it's anything other than that.

[01:01:57] That would be good to see what impact that had. That would be great. And as far as reducing services, thank you for pointing out that eliminating the Sunday would probably mean additional dumping. I don't think we want to be looking at reduced servicing.

[01:02:15] I'm one of those people who pretty proudly says I get a lot of good ideas from other people. And this idea is something that was my predecessor, Elaine McConnell, working with Joanne McCoy, who's here. But, you know, Elaine had a Solid Waste Advisory Council where they sat down, and I know you meet quarterly with them, but that's primarily to tell them schedule impacts and that kind of stuff.

[01:02:42] But I think during this whole thing, I've heard from the haulers that they really want to help you meet the zero waste goals, and I think they've got some good ideas. They've got some good ideas on efficiencies at I-66. I would try to set up some kind of – just make it informal so we don't end up with another BAC, which we don't – I don't think we need.

[01:03:04] But I think an arrangement like that where you can talk about what they see, simple things like posting wait times like they do at ERs and everywhere else. What is the wait time at 95? What's the wait time at 66?

[01:03:19] Helps them manage their day. I appreciate you bringing the third scale in so that you can get more of them in and out. On food waste, I think with our affordability issues right now, I'm sorry, supervisor, I can't see us doing a fee so that we can do the food waste thing.

[01:03:45] But what I can see us doing is getting together with the haulers and BRLTA and the restaurant industry, because that's where a lot of the waste is, and see what we can get in terms of a voluntary program. See if we can incentivize it in any way, if it can reduce their tipping fee.

[01:04:05] But I would work some of those kinds of things as we try to move forward, you know, these environmental goals without putting additional burden on our residents, because I'm not going to, any more than the chairman, support a $59 fee that I can't explain to our residents.

[01:04:25] So with that, I will turn the floor, or turn it over to Supervisor Smith. Yes, thank you, Supervisor Smith. Wow, lots of weeds here. I appreciate the discussion because it helped me understand some of the pieces. Simple things.

[01:04:42] The sustainability fee. I don't know how confusing that is for the public, and I see now we're doing two things with this, right? And it's how much of the sustainability stuff you want to do. And the discussion led me to believe that part of that fee is going to cover these things that are free right now.

[01:05:02] We need to have the sustainability fee to include the things that are on, I don't see a page number on the slide, on this slide. Yes, ma'am, to maintain status quo, you're correct. And so that wasn't clear to me to keep those pieces, and I think we all want to keep those pieces.

[01:05:22] And I'm concerned because we keep talking about $59, but it's not $59, it's a percentage. And so to understand that percentage, nobody's average in this community. And so to have that understanding, I see the problems, I see the need, and I see we need to do something now, but it's defining what now is and it's defining how much can we go.

[01:05:45] You know, for me, what would be the amount to get us over this hill right now and do more in the future? And I am more flexible about the zero waste piece. We cannot do everything as a local government, and we have to pick and choose what we can do and how much we can ask our community for.

[01:06:05] So for me, we need to have flexibility there. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate the conversation, the information, my colleagues. One of those 99% invisible things we do that's really at the base of what local government is responsible for, and it's clearly complex, right?

[01:06:24] So I think what I'm hearing from everyone and that I think we're going back to staff with is, number one, we appreciate that you took a stab at trying to solve a few different problems at once and as quickly as possible. It's clearly a little bit more involved than that.

[01:06:41] So I think for me, what I'm saying is let's take a little bit of a step back. Let's understand how to have those very short-term solutions that are keeping you up at night. And let's really understand our problem statement, our status quo, our negotiables and non-negotiables, right?

[01:07:00] And I think we really need a little bit more information that we can sit down with you and clear up and really going into the weeds. You've gone into the weeds, but I think we all need a little bit more of the weeds to really, really dive deeply into the potential solutions and, you know, the tradeoffs for each of those, right, and the timelines for each of those.

[01:07:24] And so it seems to me, sorry, County Executive Hill, that we're going to need a little bit more time to get there and that this is that important. So we'll have to come back with the short term for next year's budget and operating expenses and then start to look at the longer term and really focus on this and focus on the goals for this and understand how do we decouple those or where is there overlap with some of our zero waste goals and where is that maybe, you know, we need more authority or

[01:08:01] there are other ways to get there or the different ways to incentivize. So I think we're going to have to separate a few of those things. But I want to see if the chairman had anything to add. Yeah, I think there are some things to add. I mean, I do think we need to have a conversation about some of our regional partners, as we discussed earlier.

[01:08:18] I mean, when I look at the regional tip fee and see, this almost never happens, but the regional tip fee in Montgomery County being below Fairfax. We are usually way more competitive than they are. Interestingly, Montgomery County has a USD, and I would like to know what portion of that is driving their lower tip fee because I have a lot more questions than I have answers sitting here today.

[01:08:43] But one of the ones before we sit down I would like to also have an answer to is the average fee. We know it's not $59. It's going to be different for everybody. But help me understand how much of that is designed to potentially reduce the tip fee versus how much of it is for all these other things.

[01:09:02] Because what makes me most comfortable sitting here is charging my residents money and suggesting to them that we're going to be able to somehow control the cost of private collectors collecting their trash. Ain't going to happen. Just going to be honest here.

[01:09:18] So, you know, because I've seen every excuse in the book for why those fees keep going up a lot. Sometimes we're blamed. Sometimes other things way outside of the control of this board and county are blamed for it. Sometimes they just happen. And so I am very troubled by explaining to anyone the connection between those two things.

[01:09:36] And so I do need more data. I think what the chair has suggested here is what needs to happen. We need to sit down and go through that. It might be that we might need a larger group working on this with some of our regional partners. But I think what you're hearing right now is we understand your problem.

[01:09:55] We don't have a way to describe that to our residents yet. And at some point, we're going to need that regardless of what the solution is. And I think there's still some other things we need to just make sure we exhaust before cementing what the long-term decision is.

[01:10:11] And that's what we would use the short-term time for. And before we close, I know we like to have dates of when we'll be able to come back. So I believe we have an opening to have a conversation in July.

[01:10:27] And so I wanted to try to push us along and see how much we can bring back to at least look at the short and potential options or problems for moving forward. I would say, one, thank you for the feedback that y'all have provided to us.

[01:10:43] We remain available to meet with you or your teams if you want to go into a deeper dive anytime. We love talking trash. We'll regroup with Deputy County Executive Miller to sort of understand what the best path forward is and then we will come back to the board certainly with does it look like we would need additional discussion in the summertime and so maybe just allow us a moment to regroup and then we'll provide you a definitive timeline absolutely I think I do think July works good okay I would say the big takeaway is thank you for trying to tackle it on your own we all need to roll up our sleeves and figure it out together so thank you we'll come back in July thank you

[01:11:20] - Well, our meeting is adjourned. - Hey folks, we're gonna have an out of many,

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