July 14, 2008

Court cautions garbage hauler about new fees

By ED COX
of The Dalles Chronicle

     Mel Barlow of Mel’s Sanitary Service, Inc. in Tygh Valley got a scolding July 2 from the Wasco County Court for assessing an unauthorized fuel surcharge last month for sanitation services in the month of May.
     “I apologize for my stupidity,” Barlow told the court after commissioners Sherry Holliday and Bill Lennox scolded him for not taking the charge through proper channels.
     Barlow said he thought he could simply assess the surcharge under the federal ICC Termination Act of 1995. However, Glenn Pierce, who administers the county’s solid waste ordinance, says he informed Barlow that only the county — via recommendation to the court from its Solid Waste Advisory Committee — can approve increases in charges for services its franchisees provide.
     Barlow received a 6 percent cost-of-business rate increase last October from the county court for this year and the next. But he said he was prompted to assess the surcharge by spiking fuel costs that have seen him paying nearly two dollars more per gallon than last year.
     Those are costs that he, as a small businessman, can’t absorb, Barlow said, noting that in some months his fuel costs were more than $2,000 in excess of last year’s.
     He said that for May services, he calculated the surcharge using software that essentially took the difference between his May 2008 and May 2007 fuel costs and divided it out among his customers.
     Holliday, a Maupin resident, said she paid 66 cents more in June for single-can service in May.
     The surcharge was not assessed for June services, but Barlow did ask the court’s permission to use such a system — which would result in surcharges that vary from month to month — until he could request another rate increase.
     However, that was a blessing the court was unwilling to give, with commissioner Bill Lennox noting that everyone is suffering with higher fuel prices and cautioning about the likely inflationary effect of passing such costs on to consumers.
     Instead, the commissioners agreed with Pierce that Barlow would have to go before the Solid Waste Advisory Committee with a proposal for a fixed rate increase.
     Barlow said he now plans to go before the county court each fall — rather than every two years — to request his cost-of-business increases.