The Auburn City Council and city manager have pushed through new garbage policies without having to face the music from the taxpayers of Auburn.

It was about three years ago when city council chambers was standing-room-only with people who vented their anger over the proposed garbage tax. One after another we marched to the microphone to give our politicians an earful and let them know that we wanted no part of this tax.

Since then our councilors and city manager haven't given up on the idea, but have only revised their strategy. The first thing they've decided is that under no circumstances do they ever want to have to go through what they experienced at that packed meeting when everybody let them have it.

They've decided to do it in small steps to get us used to the idea little by little. As an example, the number of containers that we're allowed to put out for curbside collection is limited to five. In addition, nonprofits are now paying for their garbage pickup. And, Auburn City Council voted unanimously on June 14 to change the landfill fee from a $4 yearly sticker to $20 and unlimited refuse disposal to a new fee of $3.60 per 100 pounds of refuse.

It may not seem like much at this point in time, but remember, these are just steps in a long-term strategy.

Many more steps will likely follow, things like official bags, stickers and fees.

If you just keep doing the same thing over and over again, you can eventually wear people down. It's not that residents have grown disinterested in defending themselves against taxation, but after all, they have lives to lead and don't have the time to watch every move that city hall makes. We have to depend on them to be open and above board about all they do to act in our best interests.

Out of many thousands of counties nationwide, Cayuga County is in the top 10 in taxation, according to the nonprofit Tax Foundation. But evidently it's not enough to pay for the massive retirement benefits we all have to pay out to government employees.

These entitlements have exploded completely out of control but everybody is afraid to say anything about it.

So they simply keep raising our taxes instead.

The garbage tax is just another example of that and it's definitely on the way, folks. The only way to stop it is to watch the city manager and city council like a hawk and show up once again in huge numbers when they try to implement the next step in their strategy.

Ducayne's column appears Tuesdays in The Citizen, and she can be contacted at sacredheart6005@hotmail.com