An issue that Oxford Township voters haven’t faced in 27 years could make its way back to the ballot if an elected official can find support and assistance from like-minded residents.

At last week’s township board meeting, Trustee Margaret Payne announced she “would like to see a single trash hauler” serving the township.

To help make that happen, Payne said she “would be happy to coordinate a petition drive” to place the question before voters.

“If everybody is serious that this township should have a single hauler, I think that would be wonderful,” she said.

Payne’s comments were sparked by last week’s sudden closure of Odd Job Disposal, an Oxford-based waste hauler. This left their customers scrambling to find another company to collect the trash, recyclables and yard waste that were left sitting at the curb. Many township residents have been finding it difficult to hire a new hauler.

Unlike Oxford Village, where the elected five-member council awards a contract to one trash hauler, then charges residents for the service via their monthly water/sewer bills, garbage collection is not something the township government is involved in.

It’s strictly a private matter in the township. Residents choose their haulers and pay them directly. The township does not select haulers, contract with them or issue licenses for them to operate in Oxford nor does the government bill residents for waste collection.

Treasurer Joe Ferrari said if the township is ever going to have a single waste hauler, the push for it has “got to be resident-driven.” He said if a petition were to be signed by, for example, 2,000 people, “we’d put it on the ballot and let the voters decide.”

Supervisor Bill Dunn agreed.

“Let the residents come to us,” he said.

The last time the single-hauler issue was put before township voters was in August 1992 and it went down in flames.

The proposal asked residents if the township should be allowed to contract for waste-hauling services and collect a fee for them. The issue was placed on the ballot due to opposition to the township imposing a mandatory fee on all residents without a vote of the people. A three-year contract had been awarded to Clarkston Disposal by the township board, but it was conditioned upon the proposal being approved by voters.

Voters rejected it 1,153 to 407.

Payne acknowledged that historically, township residents have opposed having a single-hauler because they view it as a “monopoly.”

“They want to choose their own hauler. They don’t want the government choosing it for them,” she said.

But Payne believes the community has changed a lot and grown a lot in 27 years and there may be more support for a single-hauler system these days. She said the township has “completely different demographics now than we had back in the 1990s.”

“A lot of these (new residents) came from cities that had a single trash hauler,” she said.

In her opinion, having one hauler makes sense because fewer garbage trucks driving through neighborhoods reduces the safety risk to pedestrians, particularly children walking to and from school, and lessens the amount of wear and tear on local roads.

Payne noted that at one point, there were five waste haulers operating in her subdivision, Oxford Woods. “Why does one subdivision need five different trash haulers? There’s no reason to put that kind of strain on our roads,” she said.

To get the single-hauler question on the ballot, Payne is looking for someone to draft petition language and people to help her circulate it. “I can’t collect (signatures) from the whole township . . . I would do Oxford Woods happily,” she said.

Folks interested in getting involved in the effort can reach Payne via email. Her address is mpayne@oxfordtownship.org.