T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY Area Sanitation Owner Wade Lamb, front, and Moler Sanitation Owner Gabe Stone, back, addressed the Marshalltown city council about proposed changes to the city’s garbage collection ordinance during Monday night’s meeting.

After first broaching the topic during the Aug. 28 regular meeting, the Marshalltown city council engaged in a lengthy discussion on potential changes to the garbage collection ordinance Monday night and invited representatives from the four companies currently serving the community to share their input.

The catalyst for the discussion was the news that Moler Sanitation had invested in an automated truck requiring containers to be placed near the curb, which is in violation of the current city ordinance mandating that receptacles be placed within five feet of the customer’s dwelling. Public Works Director Heather Thomas thanked the four haulers — Moler, Stone Sanitation, Area Sanitation and Le Grand Sanitation — for providing feedback since the August meeting, and she reported that if the ordinance is changed, all of the haulers would like the opportunity to pick up garbage at the curb if customers wish to place it there.

She then opened up the floor for discussion and mentioned a “middle ground” proposal that she hoped would be agreeable for all parties involved. Currently, the code stipulates that if residents provide their own containers, they can’t be larger than 30 gallons, and Thomas proposed changing the limit to 55 gallons.

A proposal on hauler supplied receptacles would require them to have rolling wheels, attached lids, the company’s name and phone number clearly visible and a code to help identify it. Commercial properties would be supplied by the haulers and approved by the city.

“Those were the changes to the types of receptacles. To the best of my knowledge, I do not think there’s any disagreement from the haulers in that language that we’ve changed. Feel free to come up here if I’ve misspoke,” Thomas said.

From there, she jumped into a more controversial section, the guidelines on where the cans should be placed.

“What we have in here now is a middle ground where we would allow certain containers at the curb, but not all containers. The containers that we would allow at the curb are those hauler-provided toters that I talked about that have the wheels, the lids, the names (and) the numbers,” Thomas said. “We’re looking for something that’s going to withstand (and) have some stoutness to it.”

The containers at the curb, under the proposal, could be no closer than two feet from the street and no further than four feet. Wade Lamb of Area Sanitation was the first hauler to step forward, stating his position that if one company is allowed to pick from the curb, all of them should at least have the option. Kelly Duncan of Le Grand Sanitation shared the same sentiment.

One idea that the haulers were less receptive to was segmenting off the town into four or five separate sections and that each section must be picked up on a certain day of the week, which, as Thomas explained, would theoretically make it easier to enforce and police violations of the code. The middle ground compromise, she added, was that haulers would provide a coverage map to the city to paint a clearer picture of when cans should be out on which days of the week.

Finally, Thomas said she left the enforcement terms “vague” if the city chose to take it over — in the past, it has been the haulers’ responsibility, though she later added that hasn’t been happening and the fines aren’t clear for violations.

As the matter was opened up for discussion, Councilor Mike Ladehoff quickly opined that he believed the city needed to be divided into sections.

“I know that’s a change in your operation, but if we’re gonna go to curbside… If we go to where the town is sectioned off, then the rest of the people aren’t driving around looking at garbage cans no matter where you go in town,” he said. “I think this is something that can be done.”

He went on to clarify that he is not interested in moving to a citywide municipal sanitation service, and fellow Councilor Jeff Schneider agreed with Ladehoff before adding that he would like to see only hauler-supplied receptacles at the curbs while continuing to provide the option of pickup near the house for those who can’t get their trash out by the street.

In response to questions from Councilor Gary Thompson, Moler Owner/Operator Gabe Stone provided some clarification on the fees associated with different sizes of cans, and Thompson wondered what it would take for each of the four haulers to provide their own receptacles, which, as Stone noted, Moler has already been doing for about a decade. Stone also pointed to the struggle to hire and retain employees as a driving force behind the decision to move toward automation.

“We’re not getting any younger, all of us haulers. It’s backbreaking work, guys. There’s technology we’ve invested in, and nobody really wants to do our job,” Stone said.

Thompson then asked how haulers would handle additional bags sitting outside on top of a full container, and they indicated they would most likely charge extra. Referencing images that had been shared along with the attached memo, Councilor Barry Kell said Moler had taken “a black eye” for something that was a citywide problem, with customers of other haulers also setting their containers out by the curb, and Gabe Stone noted that he wasn’t trying to put anyone else out of business but rather do things in a smarter, more efficient way.

“No matter what we do, enforcement has to be at the core of whatever decision we make,” Kell said.

A driver from Stone Sanitation shared his safety concerns about dividing the town into sections with all four haulers all being in the same area on the same day.

“I think that’s dangerous. I don’t think it’s a good idea. We’ve got big trucks — empty, they’re 30,000 pounds,” he said. “That’s a lot of weight, and if you put us in a school area, that’s even more dangerous.”

After about 25 minutes of discussion, Schneider made an initial motion to direct staff to work with haulers on putting together a map for fixed pickup dates and a city recommendation on a fee schedule for ordinance enforcement. He later amended it to include “the language we discussed already in the meeting” and added that trash would have to be in a receptacle of some sort.

Before the vote occurred, the councilors and haulers spent several more minutes going back and forth on the language, with the haulers generally opposing the sectioning requirement, and Schneider’s motion ultimately failed by a 4-3 tally, with Schneider, Kell and Gabe Isom voting in favor and Thompson, Ladehoff, Al Hoop and new Councilor Greg Nichols opposing.

Thompson then sought more clarification on the enforcement mechanisms, and after hearing from Thomas and City Clerk Alicia Hunter, he asked if the city had the manpower to pull it off.

“No, we do not,” she said.

Isom, who attended the meeting via teleconference, said the rules weren’t enforceable under the current framework, so it had to be made manageable somehow.

“We can’t have both and sit there and go on our merry way. It’s one or the other. We either don’t enforce the ordinance as it exists or we change the ordinance,” Isom said.

City Administrator Joe Gaa floated the possibility of hiring more staff to perform code enforcement and suggested that the onus should be on him, now that he is settling into his new role, to improve it. Nichols then made a separate motion to keep focused on curbside pickup, vendor supplied trash cans and the other options to be available “per the original recommendation,” but it died for lack of a second as it was already in keeping with the staff’s current direction.

Mayor Joel Greer commented that when he and Hoop were on the council together about a decade ago, a proposal to move toward a citywide pickup service “went down in flames” and was wildly unpopular. Schneider shared his frustration that the current staff direction “wouldn’t fix anything” other than legalizing what’s already happening, and he then made a motion to direct staff in keeping with what they had laid out in the original proposal.

Almost 40 minutes after the discussion began, it was carried by a unanimous vote.

In other business, the council:

• Approved the consent agenda with the exception of one item on the purchase of new police vehicles, which was pulled for further discussion.

• Approved a motion for a new special Class B Native Wine Permit for Lillie Mae Chocolates and a five-day alcohol license for Midnight Ballroom for a rodeo at the Central Iowa Fairgrounds by a pair of 6-1 votes, with Hoop opposed to both.

• Approved the third and final reading of an amendment to the international building code by a unanimous vote.

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com