Woodstock delays garbage contract vote, look for more tweaks amid some residents’ opposition

Woodstock held off on approving its new garbage contract after an almost 2½ hour discussion at a City Council meeting.

The city’s garbage contract with MDC Environmental Services is up at the end of the year, and city officials are looking to extend the contract.

As part of that extension, garbage stickers are going up from the current $3.38 to $5 in the new year. The stickers will be dropped completely July 1, and residents will have to use totes. That change, along with concerns about cost, tote sizes and storage, have led to opposition from some residents.

City officials have said tote service will cost $23.50. The proposed senior rate is $15.50 per month, City Manager Roscoe Stelford told the City Council on Tuesday, adding that it was the lowest in the county from what the city had seen.

The proposed contract extension is for 10 years. City officials already had agreed to offer a smaller, 35-gallon waste tote along with the 95-gallon size, although there is no cost savings with the smaller tote.

City officials also tout other benefits, such as the potential for less recycling contamination. Under the outgoing system, sticker customers pay for each bag of garbage but have free recycling. The city said this can lead to people placing items such as soiled pizza boxes in recycling bins to avoid buying more stickers. The waste hauler said there is an over 30% contamination rate, according to city documents.

City Council member Melissa McMahon said she opposed the new garbage contract and read out a statement outlining her views. She said the contract doesn’t account for diversity in Woodstock, and the senior discount misses the mark on including other residents on fixed incomes.

“I challenge our city and our staff to seek partnerships with providers who are forward-thinking,” such as those investing in electric vehicles, composting and expanding recycling, McMahon said.

“Woodstock deserves a waste management solution that is affordable, adaptable and [innovative],” McMahon said, adding it should be one that reflects the “character of our community” and the city’s environmental goals. She said the contract on the table doesn’t meet those standards.

Council member Bob Seegers disagreed, saying that every community has diversity and challenges, and the biggest issue was space to store totes.

“There’s 5,200 households that are benefiting greater than they were before this program,” Seegers said, referring to the number of Woodstock households already using the totes.

Council member Tom Nierman called the addition of the 35-gallon toter option “awesome” but acknowledged that some residents “have a harder time” paying for “an expense that everyone’s going to have to deal with.”

At first, the city was going to require each household to have a 95-gallon garbage tote and 65-gallon recycling tote. After some negotiations with the waste hauler, the city announced last month that it had secured a 35-gallon option but for the same price. Residents also have the option of a vacation hold of up to three months annually and one free bulk item per week.

The council also had issues with language in the contract saying that there will be an extra 5-cent fee for all customers if more than 200 opt for the smaller totes. For every 100 more customers who opt for a smaller tote, everyone pays an additional 5 cents. MDC representatives said they were open to tweaking that.

City officials have been adamant that they can’t keep the bag-and-sticker program around.

“If any [other hauler] had shown an ability to do a sticker program, we would ask for a bid from them, guaranteed,” Mayor Mike Turner said.

Stelford said it’s an industry trend.

“We are on the tail end of the trend. We have held out about as long as we possibly could to prevent this from happening for our community,” Stelford said.

Residents who spoke about the garbage contract raised a variety of concerns, including financial and environmental. Residents have been voicing issues with the new contract for the past couple of months.

Resident Chris Fischer said she uses a sticker once every six to seven weeks.

“I don’t need the garbage service,” Fischer said, asking why it is mandated.

City documents indicate that a mandatory service is “consistent” with the neighboring municipalities that do not have a sticker program.

“Ultimately, the city is allocating the cost of a service among its residential residents to remove garbage from our community,” according to a memo from Deputy City Manager Paul Christensen. “Although some residents have the capability to legally dispose of garbage via other means (e.g., dispose at their place of employment or business), the vast majority of residents do not have that option. Without access to the sticker program, allowing residents to opt out would arguably lead to more dumping in the public way or other illegal dumping on private property, as the vast majority of occupied residential homes do generate some level of garbage.”

Resident Jean Hervert Niemann said landfill space eventually will be an issue. Hervert Niemann, who said she produces one grocery bag of garbage weekly, has been outspoken in her concerns with the new contract, including the amount of plastic going into the totes. She asked the city to do education, and city staff confirmed that educational materials are part of the contra

ct.

The council debated various opt-out solutions before ultimately opting to delay the vote to the next meeting.

“The real issue is the opt-out,” Seegers said, floating the idea of passing an ordinance that would allow an opt-out.

Said Turner: “If people opt-out, [the garbage trucks are] still going by that person’s house. That’s the conundrum that we’re in.”

MDC representatives said at that point, they weren’t really willing to consider an opt-out. They also said that of all their contracts, none offer opt-outs.

Council member Natalie Ziemba said she doesn’t like “the mandate” and favors a tiered system.

Council member Darrin Flynn said he was against the contract in its current form, saying that he wants the senior customers taken out of the toter increase and a decrease on the senior rate.

Nierman supported moving forward with the contract. McMahon still was against the contract after the discussion.

Turner had said that he was comfortable with the contract and that, when looking at the state of the industry, the city doesn’t have any other options. Yet he urged one more round of negotiations with the hauler.

“I want a final effort at this,” Turner said, asking for an alternative where anyone using the totes would have no change in cost and see what that does to the senior rate.

The council is expected to take up the garbage vote at its Nov. 5 meeting, which is the same day as the general election.