After having the Brookshire City Council reject a proposal to convert to automated garbage collection in March, Republic Waste has made a second attempt to win approval for the system.
At last Thursday’s city council meeting, Republic Waste Division Manager David Aguilar again urged the council to agree to the change.
As he had at several previous meetings, Aguilar stressed converting to company-issued 96-gallon rollout containers would improve the city’s appearance by keeping garbage from being strewn about.
“It’ll help beautify the city. If you’ve ever driven through the city on Wednesday (trash collection day) morning, you’ll see what happens after the dogs and cats have been in it,” Aguilar said.
The change would also allow Republic to switch from a traditional system in which waste is collected manually to one that uses an automated arm on the trash collection truck that picks up, dumps and then replaces the containers. Aguilar said, because of less-than-desirable nature of the job, his company is forced to use temporary staffing agencies for people to work on the back of the current trucks.
To make the change, the city would have to agree to an increase in the monthly service fee from $9.02 to $10.35 per household, as well as to extend its contract with Republic for two additional years. The current contract still has three years remaining on the term.
Alderwoman Kim Branch, who made the motion to reject the proposal in March, remained skeptical.
“I’m still not a big fan of this,” Branch said.
She pointed out the city has numerous large trees, and the new proposal would restrict limb and tree debris collection to once every two weeks.
“Where’s a person supposed to store all these limbs for two weeks?” Branch asked.
Branch also said she remained concerned about the ability of elderly and handicapped residents to maneuver the large rolling containers.
Aguilar said the city would have the option of establishing “handicapped stops” where the truck driver would get out, wheel the container to the truck, dump it and the return the container to the residence. Those stops would be up to the city to determine, he said.
Alderman Jimmy Sanders, who was not on city council when it considered the proposal four months ago, said he would like to review the proposed contract before taking action.
“I’m not willing to make a decision on any contract until I have a copy of the contract to look at,” Sanders said.
Alderman Eric Green said he, too, would like to review the contract before casting another vote.
Following the discussion, Branch made a motion to reject the proposal. That motion failed because it did not receive a second.
Green then moved that the council not take action until the contract could be further reviewed. That motion was seconded by Sanders and approved.
Mayor Pro Tem Marilyn Vaughn was not present for the meeting.
By: John Pape on Mon, Jul 19, 2010
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