CITY OF WOODBURY, MINNESOTA

Office of City Administrator

Council Letter No. 02 -

March 13, 2002

The Honorable Mayor

And

Members of the City Council

City of Woodbury

Council Members:

BACKGROUND

At the city council’s October 2001 meeting, Washington County staff made a presentation to the council regarding its study of public collection of garbage and recycling for residents and commercial businesses in Washington and Ramsey counties. At that meeting the council asked the Environmental Education Commission (EEC) to review the issue and provide its comments to the city council.

Since that time county staff has met with the EEC at both their January and February meetings. The purpose for this item on tonight’s agenda is to review the EEC’s comments and to request authorization for the city administrator to send a letter to Washington County outlining the city’s comments. Judy Hunter, Solid Waste Program Manager for Washington County, will be at this evening’s meeting along with members of the EEC to answer council questions.

Attached is the study framework provided by Washington County, results of a public collection survey, a letter from the Woodbury Chamber of Commerce to the county, an email from Maroney’s Sanitation and a collection of emails from Woodbury residents who have contacted the county. Please note that the emails included here are a very small sampling of the comments the county has received. In fact they have received over 3,000 emails and postcards from residents of the two counties. These comments will be summarized for the county boards’ review in late April.

DISCUSSION

For the council’s review, Woodbury currently has an open hauling system where residents can select a licensed hauler of their choosing to provide both recycling and trash service. At present there are eight haulers who are licensed to pick up residential customers and fifteen haulers who are licensed to pick up commercial accounts in the city. Woodbury has four residential hauling zones (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday). Haulers are only allowed in neighborhoods on that area’s designated day.

Following is a list of pros and cons of the current system which was developed by the EEC at its November 2001 meeting.

• Accountability – Right now we don’t know who is responsible for blowing trash
• Safety – Too many trucks on the street
• Excessive wear and tear on City streets
• Noise level of multiple trucks
• Air pollution of multiple trucks
• Public doesn’t realize that their trash may not all be going to Newport
• Don’t have clearly accurate data on recycling tonnages

• Diversity of haulers allows multiple companies in the business
• Choice – Customer can switch to different hauler
• Reliability
• Competition as a way to hold down price
• Less government
• No governmental billing responsibility; no additional governmental responsibilities
• Service options – Lots of options provided by haulers, i.e., mattress pickup, Christmas tree pickup, because haulers want to offer as a result of competition

At the commission’s February meeting they had a more detailed discussion of the issue and developed the following comments:

• The EEC supports the Solid Waste Management Plan Goals outlined in the framework on pages 1 and 2.
• The EEC believes that Woodbury will continue to meet the recycling goals set forth by the county. The county’s goal is to maintain at least 162 pounds of recyclables per person per year through 2003. In 2001 Woodbury residents generated 211 pounds of recyclables per person.
• In general the EEC feels that the current system in Woodbury works well and questions why it is necessary to change this system.
• The commission noted that they could do more to increase commercial recycling, as this seems to be an area of concern for the county. Currently Woodbury does not require its businesses to recycle nor does it have a commercial recycling program in place.
• The commission and city staff feel strongly that the city not be involved in billing residents for recycling and trash service.
• The commission supports the county’s proposal to change the billing for garbage and recycling service to a hauler collected service charge. This involves placing the cost on the customer’s bill rather than including it in the property taxes.
• Finally, the commission feels that it needs more information on the benefits and drawbacks of public collection vs. the current system before advancing any further with the public collection discussion.

RECOMMENDATION

Staff requests that the council authorize the city administrator to forward the above-listed comments and any additional comments from the council to the Washington County Board of Commissioners.

Respectfully submitted,

Barry P. Johnson

City Administrator

By: Sonja Ritchie

Assistant to the City Administrator

Attachments: Ramsey/Washington Counties Preliminary Public Collection Framework

Survey results

Chamber of Commerce letter

Letter from Maroney’s Sanitation

Emails from Woodbury residents

Email from Jim Stack