Your Opinion: City's mandatory trash service

Dear Editor:

I read with interest the article in the July 18 edition titled "City begins prosecutions over trash service." It seems to me that the mandatory trash service is identical to the health care mandate in the Affordable Health Care Act. The health care mandate was recently ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court under the Commerce Clause and instead declared a tax. Would the Supreme Court look at the mandatory trash service in the same way?

You recently printed one of my letters where I talked about positive and negative government and laws. The mandatory trash service is a classic example of positive law and government, where government and the law are telling the people what they must do to avoid punishment.

Now the city is in a position where they are going to start prosecuting their citizens for something they may not need, as in the case of Edith Vogel.

Positive law and government are progressive and oppressive. I think it is reprehensible when the city puts itself in a position of prosecuting its own citizens.

Before this recent contract with the waste company there was no mandate and things seemed to work just fine.

While I'm on the subject of trash service, I would like to ask the city, when are you going to start enforcing your own ordinances? Particularly the one stating that trash containers are not to be set in the street.

The street I live on has parking on one side only. Some people that live on the no-parking side of the street set their containers in the street. If there is a car parked opposite their container, two cars cannot pass each other at this point.

If a car would hit one of these containers and sustain damage, who would be liable for the damage, the city or the person whose container was put in the street?

Maybe someone on the City Council could respond to these questions.