Agenda - Council - 07/24/1990 - Laserfiche WebLink

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CURBSIDE RECYCLING PROGRAM PROPOSAL The City Staff would recommend that the City Council go with a program that bids out the entire City to one contractor. This would allow the service to be made available to all of the residents regardless if they currently have refuse service. This would also allow for a uniform service to be provided to all the residents. Staff would recommend that the contract be bid for a period of two years with a percentage increase for the second year based on the inflation rate. This recommendation is based on the reaction received by the City Staff at the June 20, 1990 meeting with the current licensed residential refuse haulers. Listed below are suggestions that the City received from the meeting. Haulers proposal from June 20, 1990 Meeting The City would form a consortium for the entire City. The City would be zoned into five to six zones based on the current customers lists. A moratorium would be placed on the licensing of haulers for one year. The City would handle the billing for the program. This billing could be charged to the residents or the City could use the funds received from the tipping fee to subsidize the service. Unpaid bills would be attached to the property taxes for the residence. The City would help the refuse companies market the collected materials. A zone would be picked up on the same day, however, the entire City would not necessarily be picked on the same day. The price for the service would be negotiated between the City and the haulers as a single group. There are some problems with the development of this type of program. The problems that could be encountered include; the zoning of the City, annual rezoning of the City, City would also be required to develop a city-wide billing system, laws governing the formation of consortiums, and marketing of materials. The zoning process would be based upon the percentage of current customers the hauler services at the time of zoning. This procedure would be used to give residents the recycling service even if they did not currently have refuse service. During the process of rezoning the City for the service, residents may find that their service changes from day to day each year. This could become quite confusing for some of the residents, especially to those who move to the City during the middle of the year. This would increase the amount of staff time to monitor the program just on the annual rezoning of the City. This is a concern for the City Council and the haulers in that they would become liable for those who refused to keep their account current. This does not include the time that would be required to develop the billing system which has been estimated at $20,000. Add the cost of the rezoning based on the percentage of customers and the program could cost over $30,000 in City Staff time to start up. The City would be required to wait a period of 90 days after the public hearing to make the decision to form the consortium. The haulers indicated that they would like to see the City Staff develop a zoning plan of the City and the formation of a consortium to provide the required service.