WRIC Richmond News and Weather - Wilder, City Council Drama Continues
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Mayor Wilder's threatening to cut city services like trash pick up if city council reduces the real estate tax rate. City residents tell 8News they're furious.
Currently, city residents have their trash picked up once a week, but the mayor says the city maybe forced to reduce services to once every week and a half, maybe even two weeks.
"It would be over-running, the cans. They're full to overflowing now in one week so it would be impossible," says Church Hill resident Madeleine Gorr.
Church Hill residents says any reduction in trash collection would not only be unsightly but unsanitary.
Gorr says the neighborhood already has a problem with rodents, "We have rats in our alley. They come out of the storm drains in the alley and so I don't know how this is going to improve that situation. It is certainly going to be a health hazard."
The mayor is also threatening to slash human services, like at early childhood development and teen pregnancy prevention programs.
The city's neediest districts, the 3rd, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th, stand to see the most cuts.
"To say you are going to start cutting there is just absurd," says Councilman of the 3rd District Chris Hilbert.
"I believe we had 20 and 15/20 percent pay raises for his staff I would say if he is looking for a place to cut that might be the first place I would suggest," says Hilbert.
A spokesman for Mayor Wilder says the mayor presented city council with a budget that doesn't require any cuts in services and keeps the tax rate where it is.
"The reality is you have to have the money to provide the services if they money is cut by council then there's not money to deliver the services that's why the mayor has consistently said let's keep the tax rate where it is," says Linwood Norman, Mayor Wilder's Press Secretary.
City council will vote on the tax rate at it's April 14th meeting.
Stay with 8News for the latest developments with Mayor Wilder and city council.
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