Blair council signs off on garbage cart system

Garbage carts are on the way for Blair residents after a months-long consideration came to fruition with unanimous council approval — pending city attorney review — last week

July 1 is the target date for beginning cart collection, which will cost residents $7.50 per month for a 35-gallon cart or $12.50 per month for a 64-gallon cart.

Commercial businesses will not be eligible to receive carts, and duplexes will be the largest multifamily homes serviced. Trailer parks are considered a private business and will not receive carts or city trash management.

The city council unanimously approved a 5-year contract with David Pientok of Tri-City Sanitation for the carts at its meeting last Monday. The city will pay Pientok $7 per 35-gallon cart and $12 per 64-gallon cart.

“The city is getting 50 cents per cart. If you got 500 carts, you’re getting paid $250 a month for administrative costs,” Pientok said Monday.

The city plans to send more information to residents in the coming weeks, clerk-treasurer Debi Fremstad told the council.

Garbage bags will no longer be picked up six months after cart delivery.

Costs for the carts will be added to residents’ utility bills under the water/sewer category, but those bills were some cause for concern on Monday.

Some residents have private wells and don’t currently receive a water bill from the city. Others in annexed parts of the city aren’t eligible to connect to the water but pay city taxes.

These people are still paying city taxes, so if they wanted a cart the city would have to give them one, attorney Mark Radcliffe advised the council. Given that this would only apply to a handful of people, Pientok said he could bill them privately if needed.

“We’re not gonna be able to have a blanket policy,” councilor Jill Anderson said of payments.

Garbage bags are currently costs and profits budgeted through the city’s general fund. Radcliffe wanted the council to make sure changing that won’t affect the city’s levy limit for budget purposes.

As of Friday, Fremstad believed the city would be okay with the change, but she said at the meeting that it’s hard to know for sure how it affects the budget longterm.

“It might hurt something down the road. We don’t know,” she said of adding garbage to water bills.

Pientok typically collects charges monthly, but the city’s water bills are charged to residents quarterly.

Councilor Paul Syverson felt more comfortable with charging for the carts on the same quarterly timeline to keep the city budget balanced.

About one-third of city water bills are delinquent each quarter, Fremstad told the council, but much of that number comes from the mobile homes that won’t be part of the carts.

Still, that number is evidence that the city would be better off with a quarterly payment plan, according to Radcliffe.

“They’re not even collecting a third, they don’t have enough money to pay you monthly,” Radcliffe said to Pientok Monday. “It isn’t going to work if you don’t take quarterly payments.”

Pientok said the sides could work something out, and the carts were approved pending levy and payment considerations.