By Brian McGillivary
TRAVERSE CITY -- Grand Traverse County could get a captain to steer its floundering recycling program.
The county board this week unanimously voted to hire a full-time director for its recycling and solid waste department. Board members recently criticized a committee that oversees the county's solid waste department for failing to make progress on several fronts, including its decision not to fill a recycling manager post vacant since fall.
County Commissioner Herb Lemcool questioned the county's need for its Resource Recovery Council -- the group that oversees the county solid waste and recycling wing -- after the council voted against hiring a recycling director.
Lemcool later acknowledged overall frustration with the Resource Recovery Council.
"We need to have a resource recovery system in the county, but it needs direction and we're not getting direction," Lemcool said.
Board Chairman Addison Wheelock Jr. said commissioners clearly instructed the resource council to establish goals, determine a budget, and figure out how to fund it.
"They seem to be stuck somewhere in between," Wheelock said. "If we want something to happen in that department, we are going to have to do it here."
Resource Recovery Council Chairwoman Monica Fiebing, who serves on the committee as a representative of the waste-hauling industry, did not return messages seeking comment.
Jim Carruthers, a Traverse City commissioner and member of the Resource Recovery Council, called the group "dysfunctional" without a manager, but said the county board is to blame for its troubles.
"We've figured out what programs we want and what they should cost. Now it's up to the county board to figure out how to fund them," he said.
Grand Traverse County is saddled with the state's highest tax on trash dumped in landfills, money that's used to fund popular, but costly drop-off recycling bins and other recycling programs.
Commissioners object that businesses and residents with curb-side recycling service pay most of the tax on trash collected at landfills to pay for drop-off recycling bins they don't use. The trash tax sunsets at year's end and commissioners don't want to extend it.
Lack of progress on the funding issue contributed to the board slashing the department's budget last fall, a move that prompted its director to resign in November.
A new department manager would also be assigned to assist Traverse City, Garfield Township, and other interested townships in establishing a trash authority to contract out residential waste pick-up for the municipalities.
County Administrator Dennis Aloia said it could take about three months before someone is hired.
