Independence boosts garbage bag prices

Independence officials remained undecided about whether to back a garbage can pilot project, but did agree to increase the cost of city garbage bags.

Tri-City Sanitation’s Dave Pientok Monday continued to seek approval from the council to begin using garbage cans as opposed to bags at a few residents in each ward. He said he would use the experience in Independence to eventually roll out the change to Blair and Whitehall.

Council member Jason Ekern said members will “keep talking” about the idea. Among the unresolved questions is whether the city or Tri-City would charge residents for the service and whether garbage bags could still be used. 

“This shouldn’t be optional,” said member Cleo Skroch. “Everyone should just get a can.”  

Residents would pay $60 for a 64-gallon container, and be charged perhaps $8 a month for pick-up.

Pientok said he would outfit his vehicles with devices that would lift and empty the garbage cans. He is urging the change to protect employees from injuries hefting large bags onto a truck

The council approved boosting the cost of 10, 33-gallon garbage bags to $30, and 10, 13-gallon bags to $24 in part because retail stores selling the bags were losing money on them. One seller said that at the current price of $25 a roll of 10 bags, he was losing money through credit and debit card fees, said city clerk and treasurer Lenice Pronschinske. The change will take effect April 1.

The council also decided to consider in April a landscaping proposal of perennial flowers and ornamental trees for city hall. Landscaper Dan Filla said $10,000 of the $14,890 project would be covered by donations, though a proposal to add a sidewalk from Adams Street to the basketball court could bump up the city’s share of the project to perhaps $10,000.

“This would be a way to continue the improvements of how the city looks that you have already started,” Filla said.

The council discussed but did not act on a city committee’s suggestions for using the remaining  $123,383 in federal pandemic relief funds for, among other suggestions, new bathrooms at Four-Season Park, paying off the city’s share of ambulance service obligations, employee bonuses, city hall landscaping, dredging the Bugle Lake holding pond or adding flashing lights to speed limit signs.

The council also:

• Heard that the county may ask the city to consider ATV and UTV routes from County Road X rather than, as was initially proposed, from County Road Q.

• Heard from a city resident that the council’s online meetings were sometimes unreliable. She also asked the city to determine whether a company proposing to open the Guza Sand mine has paid the city for a road use agreement with the town of Arcadia and if the city has remedied issues cited in a 2020 report on the quality of city water. 

• Tabled approval of an applicant for a retail liquor license pending completion of paperwork.