Although operating on a “tight timetable” to make the switch to automated collection for garbage and recycling, City Council has approved a nearly $5 monthly fee increase. But customers won’t have to pick up that increase until the second quarterly bill in April. The goal is to order the necessary equipment — including nine trucks, five trailers and over 29,000 curbside carts — which probably will not be delivered until later next year, with a six-month turnaround generally expected.
Those acquisitions are going to require a $4.3 million loan through the Ohio Water Development Authority, which City Public Works Director Collette Clinkscale will now apply for after council’s passage of the enabling legislation on Monday (Nov. 16).
As recommended by the council-appointed Refuse & Recycling Task Force, the operation will remain in-house with city workers. But the days of residents dragging their bags of household trash and recyclables out to the curb will be numbered. Vice Mayor Kahlil Seren said it has been a “long time coming,” with a lot of discussion and study of automation in recent years.