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FALCON HEIGHTS CITY COUNCIL MINUTES -10- October 13, 2004 Solid Waste Commission Report on Organized Collection (continued) Council member Talbot recommended that residents contact everyone. Let yourselves be heard. He thanked the Solid Waste Commission for everything they have done. They missed time with their families and ate a lot of leftovers. Mayor Gehrz opened the meeting to commentary from the audience. Solid Waste Commission Chairperson Jeff Alexander said that Deb Jones is now Dr. Deb Jones! Mr. Thomas Lageson, 1740 Pascal, said this is an interesting study and he has a few questions. State statute states very specifically the City is to develop a plan and a proposal. What is a plan? Isn't it something stating how you're going to do it? There is no plan. We don't know what you are proposing yet. All you are really saying is that you want organized collection. We don't know much more than what was given to us on March 24. We need to see more specifics because the next 90 days is supposed to be discussion with haulers about how to make this work. At the very least he expected to see something a little more concrete about what you're proposing. If you look at the report it is all over the board. You're talking about natural gas • trucks. You're talking about multiple haulers. You're talking about multiple zones. He doesn't think the report meets the standard set forth in the statute for what constitutes a plan. All of the study that has been done during the last 90 days could have been done before the resolution of intent, and should have been done before then. You talk about price. Price isn't everything. You talk about saving us $60/year. How much of that will be eaten up by the City for additional administrative cost? That is one of the things we don't know from this study. What is going to be our point of contact? If there is a problem do we call the City? Do we call the hauler? Do we talk to a neighbor and complain to them? What will be our point of contact if there is a conflict that needs to be resolved? How many economists are on the Solid Waste Commission? You talk about the consolidation of the waste industry. That is a good sign of competition. What other industries have consolidation? There are a lot of industries where constant growth is going on. That is the standard part of business. Going to organized collection will inhibit competition and the waste haulers will be hurt. Council member Lamb said the process followed the State statute precisely. The City Attorney has been contacted on a regular basis about this to make sure the Solid Waste Commission is following State statute. The statute called for at least a 90 day study period. That study period has now ended and the Solid Waste Commission has put forth its recommendation. That recommendation says that we now should have a discussion period. As he remembers the statute, the City isn't required to include the haulers in the discussion period, just to be technically correct, but we are going to. But, what we really want to do is discuss this with the residents. During the Council discussion the Council will need to decide what a summary means. ~a