The city of Kewanee could see substantial cost savings if it approves a contractor to pick up residents’ garbage and recyclables instead of doing the job with city employees.
But at Monday’s City Council meeting, council members and people in the audience expressed misgivings about making the switch. So the council tabled an ordinance that would have awarded the contract for garbage and recyclables pickup to Lakeshore Recycling Systems.
Lakeshore has been trucking Kewanee’s trash to the landfill it operates in Atkinson for several years.
In a report to the council, Public Works Director Kevin Newton wrote that the city spends more than $1.5 million each year for solid waste and recyclables collection and disposal, and running the city’s transfer station. Those costs are offset by more than $1.6 million in revenues from garbage charges to residents and fees charged at the transfer station, Newton reported.
But the city’s costs in this area would increase in the next few years, Newton said, because the garbage trucks the city now uses will have to be replaced soon. He estimated the cost of the trucks, and of setting up a bulk recycling system, would be around $900,000.
Lakeshore’s bid, one of four the city received, was to charge the city $1.04 million for 2024. The charge would increase to $1.24 million by 2028.
Newton told the council Monday that none of the city public works employees who now work on garbage and recyclables collection would lose their jobs if the Lakeshore bid is accepted. They would be reassigned to other jobs within the city’s public works department, he said. And any employees who now are assigned to garbage or recycling pickup who leave the city staff would be replaced.
Newton said Lakeshore picks up garbage and recyclables in 80 communities in Illinois and Iowa, including Annawan and Sheffield. He was asked how residents in those communities feel about Lakeshore’s service.
The feedback received from the residents was mostly positive, Newton said. Complaints from residents came mostly in the period when the community was transitioning from city pickup to the Lakeshore service, he added.
“People don’t like change,” he said.
Members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union, which represents city workers, had questions about the Lakeshore proposal, and about the wisdom of contracting out the service.
One said he feels the city is “trying to minimize us down to nothing.”
Another said there have been problems with the trucks Lakeshore uses to haul garbage from the transfer station to the landfill. Newton acknowledged this, and said the company is working to provide another truck.
In the end, council members felt they needed more information about the services Lakeshore proposes to provide. Mayor Gary Moore said a representative of the company should be at the next council meeting to answer the council’s — and the public’s — questions.
“People have many concerns, and I share some concerns,” the mayor said. Whatever the council decides, he said, “We all need to be comfortable with the decision.”
