Garbage Collection

Carroll's commissioners decided yesterday to put some of the county's 13 red recycling bins back in service -- some of the time.The commissioners plan to institute a circuit-riding recycling service that will rotate a bin to each of four sites two Saturdays a month. The bins will be available for 6 1/2 hours at each site for county residents to deposit recyclable items in them under supervision by the local Association for Retarded Citizens.The ARC, which operates Carroll's recycling center under contract, will charge the county $222 a day to provide the bin service, a total of $10,600 a year.

Faced with an unbalanced budget, county school board members transferred money yesterday that had been earmarked for instructional materials to pay for garbage collection and utility bills."

Philadelphia -- As if things weren't bad enough in the nation's fifth-largest city, now spring is coming.Spring brings baseball back to this city whose major league teams (there used to be two) hold the records for finishing last. Since 1900, the city's teams have lost 1,575 more games than they have won. The Phillies would have to go undefeated between now and August 2001, just to get the city to .500. It is a relief to talk about the city's budget rather than its baseball.The projected five-year budget deficit is $1.2 billion.

In the coming months, Harford residents and businesses will start seeing a deluge of materials espousing the virtues of recycling.What they won't be told in all the hype -- from an elementary school contest to pick a mascot for the recycling program to brochures explaining how to sort recyclables in blue bags -- is that the fees they pay trash haulers will rise because of the program.Trash haulers will be passing on to their customers the county's new $60-per-ton tipping fee. For years, Harford trash haulers have been able to drop off garbage for the county to landfill or burn without paying for that service, a windfall of sorts.

Denver--I have changed my mind. Myriad forms of evidence have driven me to the conclusion that my opposition to limitations on the number of terms legislators may serve is mistaken.The evidence concerns such disparate matters as municipal garbage collection, interest groups in Sacramento and 8,331 bounced personal checks on the House side of the U.S. Capitol.Colorado's enactment of limits last year rebutted the assertion that limits are merely a partisan ploy by Republicans unable to beat Democrats in fair fights.