Waste Hauler agreement with Area Disposal poses new challenges for Lincoln aldermen

[October 27, 2017] 

LINCOLN

On Tuesday evening, Lincoln aldermen participated in an intense discussion surrounding the future contract with Area Disposal as a mandated trash and curbside recycling provider.

Much of the evening’s debate focused on determining the number of residential customers the city will be able to provide within the contract. Aldermen discussed how to determine the number of Lincoln dwellings, occupants, and property owners. The stumbling block also appeared to be who would be responsible for paying the quarterly bills from Area in the case of rental properties.

The contract as presented to the council on Tuesday evening, calls for Area Disposal to provide trash collection once weekly to all single-family dwellings. This includes duplexes where there are up to two homes attached to one another. The contract also calls for collection or recyclables every other week. Area will provide collection containers, including a 95 gallon bin for trash and a separate bin for recycling.

In addition, the contract calls for Area to collect garbage and recycling at a number of city owned properties, including City Hall, the Municipal Services Building (street department), the future Lincoln Police station, and the Depot. Additionally, Area will provide trash collection at the Third Friday events during the summer months, and will host two city-wide cleanup days per year.

The contract also states that the city will establish 4,460 participating households for this contract. If the number of mandated households drops below 4,400, Area Disposal may request a renegotiation of the monthly rate.

Tuesday evening, Interim City Administrator Bob Mahrt said that he has begun working on the list of households, but that it is a complicated process that is going to take a couple of weeks to complete. He said that because the list isn’t done, Area is saying they do not have sufficient time to get the new contract started on January 1st. The company will need to review the list and send out notices to each participating household regarding the new program. In addition, they will have to deliver collection containers to each of the households. Area has asked that the contract start date be backed off to April 1, 2018.

Mahrt said that the company wants to establish quarterly billing to coincide with the quarterly sewer billing and moving the date to April would serve to accomplish that goal. However, he also said that he thought the contract could be activated sooner than that, perhaps by the first of February or March.

The first comment on the topic came from Rick Hoefle, who noted that this was yet another delay in beginning the contract while in the meantime, the city was paying a monthly fee to continue to provide recycling bins downtown in the interim.

He said that Area already has 4,000 households as customers, so the city should only need to provide the additional households.

Michelle Bauer said she too wanted to start January 1st, but if there were issues with getting an accurate record of eligible households, she’d rather delay and do it correctly. She said that compiling the list needed to get started.

Heidi Browne asked about the use of a property tax list. Mahrt had earlier said that the property tax list had been obtained but was not sufficient. He now added that the list doesn’t sufficiently identify between single and multiple dwelling homes. In addition it doesn’t identify the service address, but rather the mailing address of the property owner.

A representative from Area Disposal was in the gallery and said that Area was excited to get started. What they needed from the city was contact information for each resident because they intended to mail a notice to every household.

Mayor Seth Goodman asked if Area had contracts in other communities and if so, how did they obtain the lists. The representative said the lists did come from the cities. Mahrt said the other communities he had experience with in this area owned their city water utility and had generated the list from that. The city of Lincoln does not have that utility, thus they do not have the customer list. He also noted that the sewer bills are not charged to the residents in the case of rental properties, so the sewer billing is also not a good source. He also commented that there are properties within the city that are not on the municipal sewer system.

Browne asked if there was a list of properties not on the city sewer and could Illinois American Water help with that through the water bills? Goodman said that there again, not every residence in the city is on city water, some still utilize private wells.

Mahrt said he felt the city could collect various lists and blend the data to create the master list that Area was requesting.

It was suggested that perhaps the city could get a list from Ameren Illinois, as all dwellings are billed for electricity only through Ameren. Mahrt said that Ameren was a private company, and he wasn’t sure the city could request such a list.

Also within this discussion, there seemed to be a confusion in terminology. Mahrt talked about preparing a list that included the “service address” or the physical location of a dwelling. He said that landowner names and addresses were not what was needed for this list.

Browne asked about the why the city needed the name of the occupant. She said that for this program to work, the property owner was to be the one who would pay the bill, not a renter.

Mahrt said that the service address would provide the physical address for trash collection. The property tax assessment didn’t clearly give that information because taxes are paid by the property owner, who may not be the occupant.

Browne said that she was hearing Mahrt say that the information needed to include the physical address as well as the name of the occupant. She said that the property owners would be responsible for the payment of the bill, so the name of the occupant wasn’t that critical. Goodman agreed that the plan had originally been to bill the property owner who would then have the option to include that fee in the rent figure.

Mahrt noted that if the city code enforcement office noted trash not being picked up and no area collection bin at a residence, the occupant would be the one contacted. Browne disagreed. She said as a rental property owner herself, what she has personally experienced is that the code enforcement office mailed her a picture of a problem at one of her properties, and it was her responsibility to address it with her tenant.

Mahrt reverted back to an earlier conversation about text amendments to the city code, and said that one paragraph identified the responsible party as the owner or the occupant, so in theory, there were points in time when an occupant who doesn’t own the dwelling may be held responsible for the dwelling, according to city code.

Tracy Welch commented that it appeared to him this portion of the process was “half-baked and not well thought out.” He said he wasn’t sure this could be hashed out in a Committee of the Whole meeting, and that perhaps more work needed to be done before this was presented to the council.

City Treasurer Chuck Conzo said that holding an occupant responsible would be a big issue because renters move and they don’t fulfill their obligations. So, holding the renter responsible over the land owner would lead to many issues. Mahrt said that the city had to consider the renter as the responsible party first. He said if the police were called to an address for a noise violation, the occupant would be the one held responsible, not the property owner. He added trash violation was similar and the occupant had to be the first one held responsible, then it could go to the land owner second.

Mahrt was asked how much time he needed to get this list put together. He said it could be done within the next two weeks.

Hoefle also commented that he wasn’t sure how the city could move forward with anything pertaining to this contract until that list was finished. He said that the city has to prove it qualifies for the contract by insuring there will be 4,460 households, if it doesn’t then Area can call for the contract to be renegotiated. He said this whole process had to be placed on hold until that list was in place.

Goodman said that the conversation on this particular issue needed to come to a halt. He said there was a lot that needed to be sorted out, and the issue of the list could be addressed outside of the council.

The council moved on to other issues within the contract.

Wanda Lee Rohlfs was in the galley and asked to comment. She said she had a concern that Area wanted to bill quarterly in the same time frame that the city bills the sewer. She said she thought that would be an undue burden on those with tight budgets or on fixed incomes. Bauer said that Area had said that they would make alternative arrangements for those who needed to perhaps pay monthly.

Another stumbling block within the contract became the creation of 100 households eligible for low income discounts.

Within the contract provisions are made for a senior citizen and persons with disabilities discount as well as the provision for 100 households that may be tagged as low-income households. Again, the city is responsible for determining who will get the low income discount.

The schedule of these discounts reflected in the contract show that the regular billing will be $15.17 per month. The Senior/disabled discounted amount will be $13.65 and the low-income fee charged will be $12.13 per month.

While ‘regular’ customers will have the choice of a 35, 65, or 95-gallon container, the low income households will be provided with a 35-gallon trash container and a container for recycling.

Regarding creating this list, Mahrt said he wanted guidance from the council on how to establish the list. He said that proving income eligibility would be a challenge the city would have to address. He said that many who might qualify don’t necessarily file income tax, so use of income tax returns might not work. So, the city needed to create a guideline for eligibility. Then once the city knows how it will determine eligibility, it needs to decide who it will decide who gets that extra break. He suggested it could be done on a first-come-first-serve basis or it could be by lottery.

He explained that in the lottery scenario, the city would receive applications from all eligible households and would then have a formal drawing.

Welch commented first. He said that low-income households were receiving a steeper discount than seniors, and he didn’t like the idea of seniors paying more.

Mahrt noted that the senior discount would still allow for a larger trash container, while the low-income discount dictated the smaller size only would be allowed. He said he knew that would be an issue for many low-income households.

Bauer also commented on the rate discounts. She had understood in the initial talks that the discount would be the same for both categories, and now it did appear that the low income discount had been a “compounding 20 percent.” She said perhaps Area understood this as what the city wanted, but she didn’t believe that was the intent. The discounts should be equal.

Goodman commented that this was another difficult situation because of the billing and ownership of properties. He said while a household may be low-income, the property could belong to a landlord who was not low-income.

SIDEBAR: The low-income discount came about from public comment on paying a full bill for “low volume” users. The city asked for a special price for low volume users. Area responded that there was a “Low Income Program” that could be used for the low volume pricing. The city would be responsible for providing the customers who qualify for the special pricing.

Goodman concluded the discussions saying that with so many details not worked out, he didn’t see how the council could move forward with anything. He said there was still work to do that had to be finished before the council could act responsibly.

The discussion wrapped up with nothing to be acted upon at the next voting session of the council on Monday November 6th. With no meeting of the council next week, and no action items on the 6th, this issue will be held over for further discussion at the Committee of the Whole on Tuesday, November 14th.

[Nila Smith]