MASON CITY – The Mason City Council will hold a work session on Tuesday night and look at the possibility of a major change to the city’s sanitation pick-up service.
The current trash pick-up system utilizes garbage trucks with two drivers who pickup waste that is not recyclable.
The single-driver system would entail the purchase of three new trucks at a cost of $250,000 each. The trucks use an “arm” that is remotely controlled by the driver. Also, each household in Mason City would need a special container. Those cost $68.36 each and there would be 10,000 of those needed. Both expenses would be picked up by the city. $1,433,600 would be the capitol outlay to make the transition from the current two-person system to the single-driver system. All trash containers would need to be placed curbside; no trash would be collected in alleys.
According to a memo from City Administrator Brent Trout, “the advantages of the single arm pickup relate primarily to personnel costs.” Trout claims that worker’s compensation costs would decline per employee, while eluding to the fact that less sanitation workers would be needed. He also claims that alleys would need less maintenance since the trucks would not be on them anymore.
Trout projects in his memo that sanitation rates in the city would need to be hiked in the range from 86 cents to $1.77 per month per household. Trout states in his memo that “rates are not likely to ever go down” once they are raised.
Bookmeyer will screw this up royally and the counciil will back him….and as someone said; seven families will lose their income. One more reason to vote.
The anti-efficiency crowd has checked in!
You can put your tar & feathers away. Isn’t going to happen.
http://globegazette.com/news/local/m-c-council-no-thanks-to-one-person-garbage-collection/article_e4a1bb46-966b-11e2-a633-001a4bcf887a.html
“You can put your tar & feathers away” there you go badmouthing again. shame shame
Complaining on here and voicing your opinion is all well and good. But unless you ALL show up at the city council meetings and voice your concerns over this matter and let your leadership know EXACTLY how you feel, what is the point of complaining then? Complaining on here will do all of you no good!
The city would no longer be able to reject garbage under this system. Old pc monitors, tv parts and things like this will be trown in these cans and nobody will know the difference, it will all go to the landfill. How are they going to regulate that when nobody looks at it? why recycle when you can just dumb it?
Staples takes old pc’s and printers for FREE.
No need to dump in trash.
especially if you put everything in a black bag. cut tires into sections with a sawzall, old paint can be hid also, breaking up those items will make them fit into black bags much easier. anyone else have any ideas on how to dispose of hazardous waste. post them here. PS what ever you do dont let city hall hear about this
Yes they can get off their dumb a**es and take the stuff to the landfill. They have a very good hazerdous waste and recycle program there. Most inconsiderate bozos dump it in the ditch.
http://www.landfillnorthiowa.org/
I recycle and get paid for it.
The Landfill is big on not allowing stuff like that to enter the landfil. They monitor it the best they can. So I’m going to guess they will have a system in place to counteract the dufusses that throw the kitchen sink in the trash.
Why would you change to a new system that is going to cost the user more money?
While I know it is used in Cedar Falls, it doesn’t necessarily translate into a good fit in Mason City.
Also, I don’t like the big garbage cans sitting around Cedar Falls. They are really ugly sitting in every yard.
Our recycling works very well here in Mason City too. It appears that City Hall leaps before they look.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!!
I see alot of neg about paying more. Just to let you know the containers would be a 64 gal container so that means at least 2 if not 3 bags of trash per household each week, which in turn means no more $1 orange tags. I spend on the average $10 a month on those orange tags so I can put out more than 1 bag of trash a week so if the numbers work out the way they did in Fort Dodge going from $9 a month to $14 a month is a no brainer for me. I say lets do it. This is a system that should have been in use a long time ago in this city. There are pros and cons to this system but I still beleave it is a good idea. Another good pro about it is if they decide to use it to do the recycling there is no more sorting your reyclables. You just put them in a container and they get sorted at the drop off facility.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIjD01hOa14 this is a link to show how it would work. The first truck is doing the trash and the second is doing the recycling.
It looks like a good system, but I’m not sure it would work here. First of all, it’s not the city that requires us to separate recyclables, it’s the recycling center. I don’t think that they have the manpower (more cost to them) to do it at the plant. The city might have to re-negotiate (more cost) with the company. Another thing is the yard waste, I’ve seen over 75 bags of leaves at one house in the forest park area. How many bags would fit in one container, and how many containers would that house need to have those 75 bags picked up in one stop. The only reason I would be against this idea is that 6 or 7 people would loose their job. Hopefully the city will THINK this through, before jumping in head first.
Jason: if you are putting out an average of 2-3 extra bags per week and not willing to recycle, then you are part of the problem with costs being so high. some counties have a hard time finding a place to build new landfills. far too many people are wasteful throwing items away today and buy it again tomorrow.
If they want to save money, how about all of the council give up their pay and fire Trout. A volunteer council. That will save a lot of money. All I see out of this lame idea is more money wasted. Remember the days of old when this town did not have an administrator? The mayor and council had to to it all. It is their job.
Matt, what would it take to get a petition to pass so the council would have to put it to a city wide vote? I know the voting would cost money, but at least the people can decide.
This is fully automated and with uniform containers, it will definitely help clean up the town. No varmints, or animals dinging into garbage bags. This is a no brainer. I don’t know why so many in MC are so resistant to change.
Care to explain how this truck picks up 40 or 50 bags of leaves?????
There are three types of bins, brown for waste, green for yard waste and blue for recycling.
@North Country-you must be kidding. There are at least four houses I can see from my porch who pile their garbage in the alley and do no even use the current system because they do not want to pay. The guy who used to live across the street piled it in his garage and when finally evicted they hauled out five truck loads of garbage. We have a problem right now where they drive down the road and dump their garbage where ever they see a can. Then you have to pay to get rid of it or call the police. I know of one guy who goes around town looking for a dumpster to get rid of his garbage so he doesn’t have to pay. On the other hand, we have never had a problem with having two bags (mostly after holidays) and having the sanitation department pick it up.
Businesses love to open bags of garbage, find names of people who dump their trash in their dumpsters, call the cops, and let them deal with them! Same with cardboard.
I am NOT for it or against it but all they are doing is talking about it.I get the feeling that any workman’s comp. charges are probably just put in the insurance expense and not charged to the garbage pickup rates.If that is not the case it seems like a no brainer to keep it like it is. I would have thought the rates would go down eventually with automation.
@Reggie-In the paper this morning Trout said he could not recommend this at this time. Now, that doesn’t mean they won’t do it anyway as I can see Bookie trying to get even.
This has been going on in big citys for years! Get with the program you HILL JACKS! WOW! Unbeleivable! Left that town 35 years ago and when I keep reading about how BACKWARDS you JACKS are…it just re affirms on why I left. UNBELEIVABLE!!!!!!!
Glad you left…….
just because some big cities do it. doesnt mean its the best for every town. look at those damn roundabouts.
LMFAO! We Iowans do HATE those stupid roundabouts. Aren’t they the dumbest things ever? Talk about a cluster. You get caught up in one of those and you feel like you’re in some cartoon version of driving.
Sounds like someone needs driving lessons…
Have you ever driven in some of the multi-lane ones in busy urban shopping areas? Go try it. And the wheel on the car goes round and round and round and round and round because you can’t get off once you get on!
the real reason these are comming to this area is because the engineer gets paid to develop them. Look at some of the buildings built today. a simple square building is much cheaper to build than one with odd shapes. its called job security for some.
I’ll just start dumping my garbage in bookmeyer and trouts driveway!!!
If you read the work shop packet you would see that this is not a cost savings to the residence of Mason City. Brent Trout refers to Fort Dodge where they have one man trucks and the residence are paying over 14.00 a month now. We all want to save money but if you read what they are talking about you will see that is not what is going to happen here. Lets get rid of Brent Trout that would save us in the first year over 150,000 dollars.
@rukidding-getting rid of Trout is not the answer you are looking for I believe. I think he was probably told by his boss Mr. Drunkmier to find a way to get the sanitation department. Just the rough numbers alone will tell you it is just a vendetta to get them. $750,000 just for the trucks plus the garbage bins takes it well into a ten year payback. By the time ten years gets here they will be wore out and you start all over again. Fire the drunk and his court and get someone in there that will work for the people.
Easy way for anyone to dispose of hazardous waste! “Just toss it in the trash George, they don’t check it now with those new trucks!” Want to make money and provide the same service? Easy, have the City sell yard waste bags and only pick those up. Other Cities do it.
I made that comment to my city council 10 years ago and the smart ass remark was that the bags would cost $20 each. back then as I was told the landfill charges each city a certain dollar amount for each house in that town. and the city would then have to pass that cost onto the homeowners to recover the cities cost. We must pay 19.01 each month for garbage. weather we use it or not. an old lady with a walmart bag a week or a family of 5 with alot more pays the same overpriced rate. while another local town has to contract their own haulers.
I feel sorry for the guy trying to climb in and out of that truck all day long. This will only take them twice as much time. What are the residents going to do pile it in a big pile in the middle of the block?
Duh. Did you even read the article?
one of mason cities finest
I agree with iced tea, this is a vendetta. This is the only way Bookmeyer and Trout work. They don’t get their way, they keep at it and at it until they get their way, like spoiled little children.
My question is, how many signatures on a petition does the city need to get Bookmeyer and Trout to resign????
As a taxpayer in this town this again is a stupid idea. Save the city money and charge residents more? Get real and how soon can we get rid of the clown circus at city hall?
If I were a sanitation worker I guess I would be wondering why has the city council and mayor been focusing on the sanitation department to save money?
Just a few months ago they took bids for private waste hauling and that did not work out, now they want to eliminate some poor guys job and possibly save money on the sanitation budget in what 8 or 9 years after the initial investment.
And after that what is the yearly savings? What about recycling? How about money from the garbage bag tags? Will big item pickup be eliminated?
So many questions…so little leadership.
By the time the city starts to save money the trucks will need to be replaced or continued repairs will never end up in any savings. also what happens if cars park near the garbage cans and will not allow the arm to reach it? find some bullets
I wonder how often they replace their regular garbage trucks and how much do they cost? Again I am not necessarily for or against this, just needing more information before I can make an informed opinion. On the surface it doesn’t appear to be a good move.
more options on the truck means more wear and tear. more things to go wrong and cost to fix. therefore an excuse to replace them more often.
And we need the EDC why? It looks bad to have a city trying to attract jobs on one hand that is on the other hand trying to cut public jobs everywhere it can when it’s actually going to cost the taxpayers more money to do so! I’m sorry, it doesn’t make sense to me to try to save work comp expense by getting rid of employees when it’s going to end up costing us more. Also, how are the alleys going to need less maintenance? Are they going to stop plowing snow down them if they don’t have to pick up garbage in them any more? That will go over big. Explain, please.
Yes Katie, the alleys will not get plowed. It has been my understanding that the only reason the alleys are plowed now, is so the garbage trucks can get down them.
Katie , I think Mr. Trout meant that since heavy garbage trucks won’t go down them anymore they won’t rut out as much. Large vehicles of any kind puts more stress on paved and gravel roads.They will still get plowed.
except for business district why cant all garbage be picked up at the street?
These are manufactured in Cedar Falls and work great. It is called a CurbTender and it sure makes managing the household trash easier too. Check it out – http://www.wayneusa.com/curbtender.html
Wow! If they get this pushed through somebody better call for a recall election!
The cost would be picked up by the city. Now who do you think funds the city? This just goes to show the lengths they will go to to get their way. If at first you don’t succeed just keep on trying. Another vendetta by our mayor and city council. We have good service now at a reasonable price. LEAVE IT ALONE.
I don’t understand our current city leaders’ obsession with the sanitation workers. First they wanted to burn the trash and then they wanted to replace all of the jobs with an outside company and now they want to slash the number of workers. It appears to be a vendetta. Why? This “solution” will raise fees to all the residents AND cut jobs for good and faithful city workers.
How about if some effort is spent looking into cutting the number of people who work at city hall?
capital* alluding*
Great idea. Eventually cut jobs and residents pay more? Do I understand correctly?!?!
How would this benefit anyone? Besides the city’s budget?