I consider Gilbert, Arizona my special hobby. I don't know why I find it so fascinating, but I do. Gilbert could go several different ways: the Mesa model, the Chandler model or something else. The Mesa model is as little government as possible and a lot of right-wing think tank experimentation. It also includes a healthy dose all taxes are bad and people will always vote against them. BTW, Mesa is in very bad financial straights as a result of its policies and it is probably the ugliest valley suburb (they don't like zoning either).
Then there is Chandler, far from perfect, but well run. Chandler keeps their taxes relatively low, but not that much different from the rest of the valley. The one thing that separates Chandler from Mesa (they are both heavily Republican and right-wing) is that the City Council and Mayor are realistic about what cities need to provide for quality of life and for having a sustainable tax base. BTW, many political people in the East Valley refer to Chandler as the "People Republic of Chandler" because of their supposedly liberal policies, like having a property tax.
That leads me back to Gilbert. They are having a problem with the huge amount of trash being generated by their bulk pickup system. I think this is a good example of the problems with the governing theory that currently dominates the Republican Party.
How does a Republican solve the following problem without breaking orthodoxy: Too much trash costs the city too much money for pickup, storage and the long-term viability of landfills. Raising taxes to pay for the additional needs? We know the answer to that... All taxes are bad. OK, how about instituting more recycling and restricting what can be thrown out? We all know that is a bunch of whiny tree hugger non-sense. How about a user fee? User fees are just a fancy way of saying tax. That pretty much leaves you with cutting programs (either the trash pickup or some other cuts).
I hope that did not come across as overly simplistic, but I think you can see where this is going... Reality trumps theory often.
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I don't know anything specifically about Gilbert, but I do know that there are plenty of privately run garbage disposal companies in the US. I've actually lived in an area that had several competing private companies to choose from. They worked much better than the government run trash programs that I've been forced to pay for before, and they cost about 1/3 as much.
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