MAYOR PROPOSES NEW TRASH CONTAINERS FOR ALL CUSTOMERS
February 26, 2019
The Louisa City Council met in special business session February 26, 2019 with Mayor Harold Slone presiding. In attendance was Council Members Mitch Castle, Gary Robertson, Tom Parsons, and Matt Brown. Call to order, 7:05pm
- City Auditor Jim Bryant addressed council to present the FY 2017-2018 Audit for the City and Water Depts. Mr. Bryant stated the City and Water Departments were in good financial condition, with no issues found in the audit.
- Mayor updated council on on-going projects. The Water Dept’s downtown water rehab project has been approved by DOW and currently accepting bids for construction of the project.
Mayor advised council on the reports of burning the homeless peoples belongings under the bridge. Mayor showed council photographs of the large amount of garbage and abandoned and unorganized belongings. Chief Greg Fugitt advised that they were unable to contact the people known to be living there prior to the cleanup after several attempts and he was last advised that they had moved to Florida.
- Mayor updated on Deadman’s curve road realignment project. This is a state project and currently underway with moving the underground
- utilities.
- Motion by Mitch Castle, Second by Gary Robertson to approve Minutes from January 2019 Meeting. All approve.
- Motion by Tom Parsons, Second by Matt Brown to approve second reading of “amendment to ordinance relating to animals”, ordinance 2000-07-1A. All approve.
- Motion by Tom Parsons, Second by Matt Brown to declare surplus a trailer and 2004 Sterling Garbage Truck. All approve.
- Mayor advised council that due to renovations, the Library is requesting to use the Louisa Community Center for the 2019 Summer Feeding Program. Motion by Gary Robertson, Second by Tom Parsons to allow the library to use the facility at no charge for the feeding program. All approve.
- Mayor Introduced a proposal to provide all city trash customers with a wheeled garbage containers. The containers would assist in regulating the trash limits that customers can dispose of weekly. Many Customers exceeding the the pickup limits cost the city additional landfill fees, and it is currently difficult to regulate. The cans would also prevent animals from
tearing up trash on the streets. Mayor also advised it would also keep trash weight down, since trash being rained on adds a significant amount of weight to the trash going to the landfill, which also increases the city’s landfill fees. Cost of the cans to be paid for with a small fee added to customer bills. Council requested mayor to put together a complete proposal for next meeting for further discussion. - Mayor also advised council of the need for a new Pickup Truck for the sanitation department. The current Ford F-250 is very old and falling into disrepair. This truck is used for smaller streets where the garbage truck cannot travel. Enterprise is quoting cost for a lease of a new vehicle for this purpose along with a compactor for the truck.
- Council went in executive session concerning Real Estate and Personnel matters. No actions taken.
- Meeting Adjourned at 8:28pm
Really?! Wow!!! No thanks!!! I have had my own garbage cans that are on wheels for years!!!!! No thanks!!!! I’m a proud Republican, I never vote democrat.
I totally agree. Don’t punish everyone for some people taking advantage of the services. Put a limit on it and have the garbage people count the overage and charge accordingly. The garbage people can carry a log for records. It doesn’t take very long to learn the names of everyone within the city limits. IT IS WRONG TO PUNISH EVERYONE. Some older residents are in a fixed income and only have one bag a week. Harold, you were elected to make good decisions and this is not one of them. It doesn’t matter if it is 10 cents a month it’s wrong.
I don’t know if that will hold six bags of trash, maybe six small kitchen bags. I’m not sure that’s a good idea either. There is no reason to spend the extra money, just don’t pick up more than six bags, I’m sure the trash collectors can count that high (not demeaning them in anyway, I appreciate them and their work). I live right outside the city so I can get someone else to pick up my trash if it comes to this.
Good idea, only pick up six normal size bags of trash. A letter to every city resident in advance on how many and what size will cure (most) of the problem, then deal with the residents that don’t comply personally. It is not good business to punish everyone.
If you really want efficiency, those new type of garbage cans are made to be picked up and dumped by a truck without requiring anyone to actually get out. That would speed up trash pickup, reduce the chances for personnel accidents by reducing the times a person would be outside the truck and reduce back injuries while handling the cans. There is a small are that can be purchased and added to the truck that the driver controls. Louisa should look into it when getting these cans!!!