Wright City elected leaders last week voted to waive $165 in trash fees, saying the city was at fault for failing to bill a couple who went a year without trash service.

City resident Anthony Springer asked Wright City’s Board of Aldermen to consider the waiver during their Oct. 22 public meeting. He said he and his  fiancee moved into their Wright City home in September 2019, but didn’t sign up for trash service until a year later. After one month of service, Springer said he received a bill for an entire year of missed payments, initially totaling over $180.

“When I moved in, I did what I always did because I work in construction: I took our trash to work,” Springer explained. After getting tired of doing that, he said they inquired about receiving trash service through the city earlier this year.

“We were never told that we were required to pay for (trash service), whether we were using it or not,” Springer stated. “I’m trying to understand how we can be forced to pay for a service that we’re not using.”

City officials explained that all residents are billed for trash service contracted by city hall, and that there isn’t an option to opt out. However, no trash service was being provided to Springer’s  home or being paid for until this September when the homeowners signed up, city staff said.

Ward 2 Alderman Ramiz Hakim said the city should have been billing Springer from the moment he moved in during 2019, but that it isn’t fair to now back charge Springer for a year of trash services that weren’t provided or paid for by the city.

“There comes a time when the city has to come to grips with these issues that we’re having with our residents,” Hakim said. “I find it unfair, to be frank, that we go back and back bill, especially if we didn’t output any taxpayer money to service the address.”

Hakim motioned, and fellow aldermen agreed, to waive all but $16.75 charged to Springer for a month of trash service his household actually received in September. Aldermen voted 4-0 to waive the charges for the prior year of trash service that wasn’t provided.

Asked how this oversight happened, City Administrator Jim Schuchmann explained that the house Springer purchased was a new construction, with an occupancy permit initially issued to the builder. Schuchmann said the city wasn’t notified to begin billing for services when an actual resident purchased the house.

After the decision to waive the fees, city attorney Paul Rost clarified that city residents still don’t have the option to opt out of paying for trash service.

“It’s not because you don’t want to have trash service with the city. It’s because you weren’t notified,” Rost told Springer. “If you had come in on day one and said, ‘I don’t want to have trash with the city,’ we would have said, ‘Yeah, you do.’”