WELLMAN

Making a decision on who will collect Wellman’s garbage for the next five years turned out to be more complicated for the Wellman City Council on Monday night than they perhaps anticipated.

The fact that two trash collectors showed up at the meeting – and that the city’s Public Works staff also chimed in -- changed the dynamic.

Residents have been unhappy with the service provided by Cox Sanitation and Recycling, prompting the city to look at other options when their contract expires in November. Cox had a habit of leaving trash uncollected if bags weren’t tied closed, were torn open, or weighed too much; recycling was left behind if not perfectly sorted.

However, from the city’s perspective, there were advantages to working with the North English-based company, and city staff had worked with them to address these problems, improving service in recent months.

City Administrator Kelly Litwiller, attending the meeting remotely, told the council Cox remained her top choice, and their pricing was the lowest. Switching to 65-gallon bins would alleviate many issues residents had with bags – and the city expects to adopt bins regardless of the trash collector chosen.

Council members asked questions about other bin size options and how large items would be dealt with. Then the Public Works staff raised the issue of huge garbage trucks damaging the roads.

A driver with N&N Sanitation of Kalona shared his perspective.

“I do know the other two companies. I’m going to guess they’re bringing two trucks into your city, one for garbage, one for recycling. We run one. We have a split-body truck,” he said, explaining that garbage and recycling could be collected in a single, efficient pass.

The roads issue gave council pause.

“When you start thinking about destroying our roads too, we just passed a bunch of ordinances of where trucks can drive in town, and then we go and do this, [which] kind of goes against that,” council member Shannon McCain said. “I think we need to think about it and decide if that’s the way we want to go.”

This gave a representative of Dusty’s Disposal, of Riverside, an opening; “We have a truck that is . . . very light,” he said. “It sounds like we don’t have much of a fight in this, but if you guys want to keep that in mind, we can rework numbers and everything and come back at it.”

Dusty’s Disposal would just be getting into residential trash collection should it be awarded a contract with Wellman.

With new information to consider, the council tabled the decision on trash service until their next meeting, March 17.

Other Action

The council also tabled action on a derelict property located at 818 10th Avenue until a realtor could look at the property and advise if the house can be rehabbed or should be demolished. The city has recently taken possession of the property.

The council approved the city’s gas system annual reports for submission.

Before heading into a work session to discuss the city’s need for a new skid loader and dump truck, Litwiller noted that the city was awarded a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant, which will go toward water system upgrades.

The grant was hard-won, with city staff and council personally calling and visiting residents in order to obtain survey information that was required as part of the grant application.

“I’m just thrilled with the grant, and thanks to Kelly and Beth [VanWinkle] for pushing us and making us help out with that,” council member Fern Bontrager said. “What an accomplishment.”

The Wellman City Council will next meet on Monday, March 17 at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall.