Just shy of 40 residents, government officials and garbage company representatives met in the council chambers of Big Lake City Hall to discuss organized collection on Monday. Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, Mayor
Raeanne Danielowski, Police Chief Scharf and other city officials were in attendance alongside residents.
The panel consisted of Big Lake City Administrator Clay Wilfahrt, Chris from Ace Solid Waste and Mark from Randy’s Environmental services. The MPCA was also invited to attend but declined late last week. City residents were unhappy with the MPCA’s absence, calling it a ‘big statement.' Others asked why other city representatives were not invited to share their thoughts on why they did or did not choose organized collection.
“To be honest, we hadn’t thought of that,” admitted Wilfahrt. ”But we invited who we felt were the best experts who had a history of this type of discussion.”
“We want to make it absolutely clear that the city has no opinion on this,” he added. “If we had, we wouldn’t have this open house. Several residents approached us with this idea, so we decided to explore it.”
The open house began at 5pm and remained mostly anonymous. Both refuse companies began the open house with statements, both of which strongly indicated both companies were interested in keeping Big Lake as an open collection system. Both addressed common concerns with garbage collection.
“Garbage trucks are much safer and have few accidents than city vehicles that we’ve seen,” said Chris DeLaForest of Ace. “A lot goes into a garbage truck to make them safer and quieter than they ever were before.”
Two truck drivers were in attendance and testified to the safety improvements.
“You wear that truck, and it’s a part of you,” one driver said. “We have to ensure everything is in proper working order before that truck goes out on the road. When we back up, cameras come on, and everything stops, there are no distractions.”
He also stated in his experience that any accidents come from others failing to yield to the truck.
“We are always monitored with cameras,” said the other driver, “we can’t have any distractions, not even music or food.”
“I despise those back-up beepers, and I want them gone and fewer trucks going by my house, I can’t sleep in with all the noise,” said one older woman sternly.
“Well, reverse warning beepers will not go away,” said Mark Stoltman of Randy’s. “Those are here to stay. Those are for safety. “I would much rather have loud noises that prevent injured or dead children,” replied a gentleman. “I can tolerate the noise; I can’t tolerate the deaths of people because of lack of safety.”
“And another thing, social media does not represent the taxpayers and shouldn’t be considered,” he continued. “I want first-hand information, not a bunch of kid trolls on Facebook.”
Wilfahrt maintained that social media responses, though very emotional, would be used in the consideration as many residents of the city had voiced their concerns on social media in various groups or pages.
“I think the bottom line here is that no one wants to lose their choices,” another gentleman said. “I don’t want to have a keep-your- hauler to turn into a keep- your-doctor situation and I think it would be unfair to us that we’d have to pay for other residents that did not pay.”
In an open system, the failure to pay would result in a loss of service. In an organized collection system, the other taxpayers would likely see them covering the costs as noted by Chris from Ace.
“The headline costs that you see aren’t what you pay. Sure your garbage bill is low but added fees wind up in property taxes,” he said.
“The numbers you see for other cities are only an image of a moment in time,” added Mark from Randy’s. “Costs are not the same for each city if you were to poll people some will tell you costs went down, but others will tell you it went up for them, and they likely don’t see the same service they did before.”
Some residents suggested price matching or group contract negotiation, neither of which could happen as the city, by law, makes negotiations behind closed doors with providers until a deal is reached. Mark pointed out that Minnesota is the top four highest regulated state for waste collection, which included negotiations.
Guidelines for how a negotiation or the process to convert to organized collection was unknown and varies by city.
Options were presented outside of organized collection, including license limits or day zoning. The City of Anoka recently adopted a permit limit, meaning that they will ‘eventually’ only allow four of the seven providers to hold a permit in the city.
Day zoning, a much more popular idea to those in attendance, is the method of zoning the city into sections, each section has a designated day, and all carriers must serve that area in that day. The idea then eliminates multiple days of ‘garbage truck parades’ as described by one resident. And then only happens on one day a week where everyone has the same garbage day.
“People can’t remember their service days, so their cans are out on either side of their day and get in the way.” said an elder woman.
“Having everyone on one day helps with winter road cleanup,” Wilfahrt said. “Plows would only have to avoid cans on one day, allowing more days to clear more of the roads.”
The discussion of roads went further. Both waste companies agreed that weather, not road traffic, was the biggest culprit to road wear.
“You see unused roads that in a matter of a few years just fall apart in this Minnesota climate rather than the roads with continuous use,” said Mark of Randy’s. “As for waste trucks, the fewer trucks, the worse it is, those trucks are bigger and heavier than smaller trucks, over 11 times heavier than an average sized sedan.”
Larger trucks, he explained, can be a bit better also, as they have more wheels to distribute the weight than smaller vehicles. As for the efficient collection, Mark told that you couldn't compare a flat town with connected roads with a city like Big Lake with many curves and dead end streets.
“Apples and Oranges,” he said.
In the end, most residents had their minds made up and called the loss of choice a “slippery slope.” Questions and concerns were still being asked well after the scheduled end time of 7pm.
“This was a great thing to have people involved and to learn about this idea, and it’s process,” said Mayor Danielowski. “I didn’t know there was so much to learn about garbage, I have learned a lot, and I fell many others did too.”
The city plans to do questionnaires and polls in the coming months and will consider a special election, though expensive, if they feel it necessary. The city is far from a decision and will continue its search for public feedback for the foreseeable future.
