01-23-2002 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

515 Little Canada Road, Little Canada, MN 55117 -1600 (651) 766 -4029 / FAX: (651) 766 -4048 www.ei.little-canada.mn.us MEMORANDUM TO: Mayor Fahey & Members of the City Council FROM: Joel Hanson, City Administrator DATE: January 18, 2002 RE: County Organized Collection Program MAYOR Michael 1. Fahey COUNCIL Beverly Scalze Jim LaVatle Matt Anderson Rick Montour ADMINISTRATOR Joel R. Hanson Ramsey and Washington Counties are exploring the possibility of implementing a public refuse collection system. Their reasons for doing so included environmental issues and, in my opinion, a way to ensure adequate waste streams flowing to the NRG (formerly NSP) facility in Newport. A meeting was held with Ramsey County city managers in November to introduce this topic to us. The County is continuing to explore its options and should be seeking more formal input on the part of cities within the next couple of months. In fact, this will be the topic of the Ramsey County League of Local Governments meeting to be held on February 28°'. (RCLLG has also asked us to talk about our experience with organized collection at this meeting.) It is not clear at this point what the implementation of a County collection program would mean to Little Canada. It may mean we could choose to continue our organized program if we felt it was in our community's best interests and assuming we met some predetermined County objectives. Some questions you may want to consider as you evaluate what is best for Little Canada are as follows: • What option provides our residents with the best value? • Can the County positively impact the subsidy (property taxes) they are providing to haulers to generate sufficient waste streams to comply with their contract with NRG? • Can we maintain our current program and provide a better deal to our residents? ® Will multiple family dwelling units and /or commercial properties be included in the County's program? a Are we achieving a better option in terms of minimizing litigation involving landfills due to a more environmentally responsible waste management practice? Again, more information will be forthcoming regarding this topic. My goal with this discussion is to make you aware of it and to ensure I am providing you with the information you need to evaluate this issue. To that end, I have attached information I obtained from the County's website to provide further background. We will continue to monitor this matter. Should you have further direction regarding this issue, please advise me accordingly.