Budget meeting 7 PM this Thursday night at Community Center

Privation has a way of confirming necessity, or betraying abundance, so that the snowstorms of Februrary Ten may well prove a teaching moment, as the city of Frostburg grapples with budget challenges of unprecedented severity.

Sometimes we only realize how important something is when it’s taken from us. Like being fool enough to get caught in a blizzard with plenty of bread, milk and toilet paper, but not enough beer: Necessity redefined.

Sometimes, though, in being deprived our normal measure, we realize that perhaps we could have done with less all along.

Like trash pickup.

For better or worse, I spent my formative years in Thurmont, Md., gateway to the Catoctins, which is a cool name for both a mountain range and a high school.  Located about 20 miles north of Frederick, Thurmont is similar in size to Frostburg, having grown on the fringe of the D.C. suburbs to a population of 5,600, compared to 7,900 in the Mountain City. Reflecting downstate affluence, the town’s median household income is $49,500, compared to $25,500 in Frostburg.

Hard labor sears memory, so that thoughts of Thurmont, and youth, too often convey to the four metal trash cans we had around the back of the house for our family of seven. I remember the cans well, because I carried them curbside and back on countless Sunday nights.

But never on a Wednesday, as I do now at the Crest of West, because Thurmont only had trash pickup once a week, and according to www.thurmont.com, that’s still the way it is, because that’s the way it’s always been.

Just as Frostburg picks up trash twice a week.

More than a few years back, the city bought a new trash truck, at significant taxpayer expense, and I remember at the time thinking how weekly pickup made so much sense relative to that purchase; how the miles for the new truck would be nearly halved, and its working life greatly extended, if it hit city streets just twice a week instead of four.

The trash crew would also be available those two days for other Street Department work, like attending to the pothole plague spawned by the snow.

But then, I like twice-weekly trash pickup. I only need one can, and it’s nice for those big-trash weeks that just seem to happen, and for the holidays. Nice, too, to have the garbage a little less ripe in summer. I know I’d miss twice a week pickup, because I recently did.

During the recent winter onslaught, Frostburg residents went two weeks without trash pickup, as city public works crews were busy plowing, and streets were too narrow for passage of the trash truck.

But when the truck returned the Thursday after the President’s Day holiday, and 14 days since the last West End pickup, my family of four’s street-side rubbish pile counted our regular can plus two or three bags – which falls within the city’s acceptable limits for regular pickup, twice a week. In other words, it wasn’t that much.

Last Wednesday night I half forgot to set out the can, and half didn’t do it as a quasi experiment, because there were only little two grocery bags of trash in there, and I was already thinking of this column.

Tonight as I write, a full can about 90-percent packed sits curbside, with a 30-pack box beside it, crammed full of cardboard and that uncompressible cookie plastic that so bedevils the kitchen can. The point being, weekly pickup, while somewhat inconvenient, is eminently do-able.

The suggestion has already been made, as part of a city campaign to solicit ideas from citizens on how to improve the efficiency of city government, and perhaps save some money. In addition to the ongoing appeal for such suggestions – which can be posted through the city’s Web site at www.frostburgcity.com – the City Council hosted a January citizen budget meeting, and is set to hold a second follow-up meeting Thursday night at 7 p.m. in the Community Center.

The unprecedented outreach was launched in response to unprecedented budget pressures facing City Hall.

Last fall, counties and municipalities throughout Maryland were hit with a mid-year state-funding cut that blew a big hole in every local-government budget. Frostburg lost $340,000 from an operating budget of $3.7 million, and the reduction carries over to the fiscal budget year that begins July 1.  Until the General Assembly ends next month, municipal and county governments statewide are holding their breath, hoping it doesn’t get worse.

In Frostburg, the City Council absorbed the budget cut without laying off any workers, but it was a close call. Employee benefits were cut and health-care costs increased. Among community organizations, nearly a dozen groups from the Palace Theatre to Frostburg Museum saw hotel/motel allocations halved.

Thus are issues like trash collection, sale of surplus city property and beefed-up parking meter collections on the table for serious consideration as the City Council begins its annual spring budget formulation. “Revenue enhancements,” a polite term for tax increases, are also a distinct possibility publicly acknowledged by city officials.

These challenging times demand serious discussion, as to the cost and benefits of public services, and citizen needs and priorities. While rabid partisanship and the absence of balanced-budget accountability inhibit any such debate in Congress, state and local governments bound by mandates to balance revenue and spending. are engaging in such deliberations nationwide.

As budgets define the goals of government, Thursday’s meeting offers Frostburg residents the opportunity to help set the city’s course for the coming year.  The Mayor and City Council are to be commended for inviting citizens to participate in decisions with real-world implications for the community we call home, and the quality of life we treasure…

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