Todd Kuhns on City Council

At tonight’s study session, the council received a copy of the budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year. I realize that’s awfully exciting stuff.

But the main topic of discussion was the renewal of the city’s agreement with Veolia, the company that does trash pickup and waste disposal for all of us. Overall, it’s not a bad proposal. There is an increase in total cost for each resident’s trash pickup (from $6.50 to $10 a month), but new services were added. Instead of the 45 gallon containers that we currently have to provide and fill, Veolia will provide 96 gallon containers on wheels to each resident. The added volume should eliminate the need to buy those orange dollar stickers to put on extra bags.

I saw some photos of these new containers and they look nice. Because they’re a standard size and appearance, they’ll make our curbs look neater on trash day. They’re also designed to allow for automated pickup by the trucks - meaning each container can be emptied in about 4 seconds using a mechanical arm attached to the truck, without crew assistance. That should make trash pickup faster and cleaner, without those empty lids and containers blowing over and kicking around in the road like they currently do. These containers are on wheels, so they’ll be easy for older folks to push to the curb, and Veolia will maintain them for us - replacing the wheels if they break, replacing them if they’re damaged, etc.

Another part of the new proposal is for them to take over disposal of large items, which is currently handled by the city. They would replace the annual “spring cleanup” time with the ability to put out one large item each week all year-long. A number of people at the meeting hoped that this would keep the city from looking so unattractive during the month of spring cleanup - since many folks put out their items weeks in advance of the actual spring cleanup pickup time. Even better, this frees up city employees, trucks and equipment that is currently used for the spring cleanup to fix roads and potholes during this prime time to do it. Yard waste services will remain the same.