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Board of Comm'rs of Atkinson County v. Guthrie

The county had authority under state law to require property owners to pay their tenants' garbage collection fees.

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A group of Atkinson County property owners challenged the constitutionality of a county ordinance that makes them responsible for the payment of garbage collection fees for their rental property. The trial court struck down the ordinance as unconstitutional, and the county appealed. The property owners then filed a motion to dismiss the appeal, which the trial court granted. The issues on appeal are whether the trial court properly dismissed the notice of appeal as illegal and whether the county ordinance is constitutional. Because the county met all the statutory requirements for filing its notice of appeal and the county ordinance does not violate the due process rights of property owners by assessing them for the cost of services to their property, we reverse.

The Atkinson County Solid Waste Management Authority was established in 1992 and borrowed $3.4 million dollars from the United States Department of Agriculture to construct a county landfill. In 1994 the authority and the county board of commissioners entered into an intergovernmental contract in which the county agreed that all waste generated in the unincorporated areas of the county would be delivered to the landfill. In 1995 the agreement was amended to make the county responsible for payment of the authority’s debt if the fees collected did not cover the debt payments. When the landfill fees did not generate sufficient income to pay the authority’s debt, the county allocated general funds to pay the shortfall.

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