To the Editor:

So I get a yellow note in the mail from Southampton County. It announces exceptions to the $200 garbage fee/tax along with an extension of time to comply. (“Deadline for garbage fee extended till March,” Nov. 30).

That’s nice, especially following an article in The Tidewater News last week suggesting a combination of effort and resources between the City of Franklin and the Southampton Board of Supervisors addressing the subject of you guessed it — “garbage.” (“Southampton, Franklin will work together,” Nov. 28).

Merging resources and expanding collections to include all the rural county homes might not really be a good idea. It appears to me this is an attempt at “empire building” by someone.

Why create another bureaucratic monster?

It will be staffed by many, require an administration staff and be managed by a newly appointed garbage czar and to what avail?

Get the garbage fee into the real estate tax where it belongs. Forget building another empire for some who want to “manage” something and leave it alone.

John Murphy
Franklin