The idea of hiring a private company to pick up Kewaneeans’ garbage and haul it away has been kicked around by city officials for several years.
At Monday’s City Council meeting, that idea was kicked around publicly for the first time. And a number of people in the audience didn’t like it.
Those people were members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the union that represents Kewanee’s municipal workers. Privatization would mean eliminating four union jobs, although council members stressed that the people in those jobs now would be transferred elsewhere in the public works department.
“I would never agree to anything that would require a layoff,” Mayor Gary Moore said.
Kevin Newton, the city’s public works director, started the discussion by reporting on his seeking bids from private companies for taking over the city’s sanitation operation.
After Newton’s report was finished, it was clear that the issue of privatizing trash pickup and disposal is a complex one. The bidders offered different services at different prices to the city, and selecting a private operator would take a great deal of study by city officials.
Perhaps the biggest issue is the use of the city’s transfer station. One bidder specified that they would need to use the station for loading trash into trucks to be hauled to a landfill; another wouldn’t use the station.
Whatever happens, Newton said, the transfer station itself needs repairs, including rebuilding a ramp. That alone, he said, might cost as much as $40,000.
“There’s a lot of questions that need to be answered still,” Newton said.
AFSCME official Joshua Shipp said he feels privatization would be a “cumbersome, complex solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist.”
Shipp said the city’s garbage pickup operation generates more revenue than it costs. Going with a private hauler would increase the cost of the operation and reduce the quality of it, he said.
Newtown said the bids the city received from private companies for running the sanitation service would be for five-year contracts. Shipp said that if privatization doesn’t work out, “The cost of getting back in would be prohibitively high” for the city.
Councilman Chris Colomer said the council hasn’t made any decision on privatization other than that the city workers now in that department would keep their jobs no matter what.
Colomer said one factor in the council’s decision is that the city will have to buy two new garbage trucks soon. The cost of those trucks, he said, would offset any profits the city is making now on its sanitation operations.
