Talking trash
Residents complain that proposal offers less service at a higher cost
BY PHIL REYNOLDS
SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

STAFF PHOTO BY JUDY K. KRANTZ Fading away? The men riding on the backs of trash trucks will become a thing of the past if Port Aransas switches to a mechanical-arm trash truck. City council members will consider a new contract with Allied Waste that would put the newer trucks into operation but maintain twice-a-week pickup for residences and businesses.

Relax.

Your trash collection rates won't be going up immediately, senior citizens will continue to pay less for pickup and - at least for the time being - trash will continue to be picked up twice a week.

City council members proved amenable to everything in City Manager Michael Kovacs' proposal to revamp how trash is collected in Port Aransas except for the idea that seniors would pay the same as everyone else and the idea that trash could be collected once a week instead of the current twice weekly.

Kovacs' proposal was to switch residential and residential-style users from purchased trash cans to city-issued 95-gallon wheeled bins called "toters." The toters can be picked up and emptied by a mechanical arm on newer trash trucks, eliminating the need for riders on the truck who manually pick up and empty the existing trash cans.

The change would mean an additional $4.69 per month on the bill, Kovacs estimated, bringing the total for a residence to $25. People who needed more than one of the 95-gallon bins would be charged another $25.

Kovacs also wanted to raise trash collection rates for seniors because it would make it easier for the city to do its billing cycles. Learning that 210 reduced-rate bills are going to senior citizens, the council told Kovacs to continue giving them the rate break, which amounts to about 10 percent.

(Kovacs had earlier said that tax breaks granted to senior citizens by the Texas Legislature would more than make up for the higher rates proposed for tax collection.)

Under the new proposal, brush would also be picked up on a weekly schedule and recycling, offered informally by Allied Waste, would be made part of the contract.

The idea of picking trash up once a week instead of twice drew fire from the audience even before the question came up on the council's agenda.

"Am I willing to pay for twice a week trash pickup? I don't look at it as an amenity or a luxury, I look at it as a minimum service from the city," said Neil Libby during the audience comment part of the meeting.

"I think it's a mistake," Theta Kenney agreed, "but for a different reason. We're a city of transients - weekenders -- and it's bad enough now with twice a week pickup, with young men who have the most thankless job in town. Weekenders won't care where they throw the trash: It's going to be under the houses or who knows where, and that truck won't pick them up."

"You are increasing our costs, you are decreasing your service, you're making it extremely difficult to clean up the totes," Sheila Schnorr told the council. "How many times am I going to have to run to the dump because I can't afford three of the totes? We understand prices rising, but I don't consider this a viable solution.

"Also," Schnorr wanted to know, "what do we do with the four or five 55-gallon containers we all have sitting outside our houses right now?"

"Earlier this summer, the council asked me to look at (the city's public works department)," Kovacs reminded council members when the matter came up on the agenda. "A lot of elements that public works does are actually not governmental. We've also been looking at trash collection for a couple years -- which things we can do ourselves and which things should be contracted."

Kovacs said with the system of 95- gallon containers, "We get rid of the helter-skelter trash cans and get more defined trash cans as well as getting billing organized. A cheaper solution that would keep the rate a bit lower is collecting once a week. That's an experiment and we're playing a hunch, but 95 gallons is a lot of trash."

Bob Bradley, district manager for Allied Waste Services, pointed out that since 1991, the limit on trash containers is supposed to have been 35 gallons.

"A lot of people are moving (farther south) on the island and saying, 'We need these (larger) cans because we have trash scattered all up and down the road and birds and coyotes.' So they went and bought heavy-duty 65-gallon trash cans," Bradley said. "But we're doing pick-up, and we can't lift them, so we're in a Catch22. That's one of the benefits of this - our guys don't have to lift them."

Assistant City Manager Judy Lyle also noted that the city limits customers to three 35-gallon trash cans.

"If they have more, they pay a higher rate," Lyle said.

Bradley said trash collection rates are going up in any case because Corpus Christi, where the trash is dumped, has opened a new landfill that's 45 minutes farther away from Port Aransas.

"We're a service company, and we'll do whatever the city wants," Bradley said. "But we're looking at what we're doing now, going beyond the contract (in picking up larger cans) -- but if we leave things the way they are, we're going to have to add a truck and a driver. Things are going up just by virtue of (a greater distance) to the landfill."

"If you only pick my garbage up once a week, I'd be hotter than a firecracker," commented Mayor Claude Brown. - "That won't work."

"I think the mechanized system is the way to go," Councilman Keith Donley agreed, "but from public comments and my personal experience I agree with the mayor and think it has to be twice a week. So if we used the 95-gallon container it'd cost us another $5 a month? That's a no-brainer."

"We'll also have to go from two to three pickup zones," Kovacs said. "We propose that heavy tourist areas be picked up first thing after the weekends."

"I need to go back and figure out schedules, how we're going to do twice weekly pickups," Bradley told the council. "It's going to mean Saturday pickups. I'd really like you to table this until next month and let me figure that out."

They did - as well as the following item that called for the increase in sanitation pickup fees. The council expects to take the matter up again at its October meeting, scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 18 at 5 p.m.