The Ways & Means Committee met on Monday night and reviewed several items without any action. One of those items was a proposal for residential garbage and recycling services from Countywide Sanitation Company in Grand Forks. Rachel Gornowicz, the owner of Countrywide, went through the basics of the proposal and answered a few questions from the committee.
The proposal would be a subscription service for each residence and includes beginning rates for trash ($10.90/month), recycling ($3.95/month), and an administrative expense ($2.00/month) with Countrywide taking over the administrative duties. Optional services include seasonal yard waste ($7.00/month) and an annual cleanup ($2.50). If the City of Crookston were to agree to cease their garbage and recycling collection, the $5 garbage fee would be removed from the water bill, residents wouldn’t need to buy specific bags, Countrywide would have the sole contract for residents within city limits, and garbage collection schedule would remain the same. Countrywide would provide 64-gallon garbage and recycling carts to all subscribers, with an option to reduce the size to 64-gallons. Yard waste would include a third 96-gallon cart and each cart type would have a different color lid.
City Administrator Shannon Stassen said that the key now will be how the community feels about contracting for sanitation services. “Countrywide was the one company that did submit,” said Stassen. “We did reach out to a few and hand-delivered to the one in town to Regional Sanitation. We received the one back from Countrywide Sanitation and they not only met the requirements we had in the proposal but exceeded in a lot of cases in terms of what they addressed, their community outreach, and public communication. They did a nice job. The real key will be what the community feels about making that move. The six years I’ve been here I’ve heard a lot about the roll-away containers and that people would like to see that. Now we have an idea of what that would like expense wise.”
Stassen said he wouldn’t mind reviewing the proposal again in two weeks, but that timeline depends on the level of response the city and council members get from residents. “It would be $5 no longer on the water bill, not having bags and all those things that have come up time and time again,” said Stassen. “We want to hear the pros and cons. Timeline, I don’t know. It would be nice to bring it back to the next Ways & Means but it depends on the rate of how much input is coming and how we can accumulate that and pass it on. And council members are going to get their own feedback. We’ll just have to have a long discussion and if we feel like we need more time we’ll push it back again.”
The City of Crookston currently employees two full-time staff members who work half the day on sanitation and the rest of the day for Public Works. The option to look at the change in sanitation service came about as a result of one of those two people retiring. If the city was to get out of the sanitation business Stassen said one option on the table would be to have the remaining employee from sanitation continue to work on Public Works fulltime. The option for the second position would be to reclassify it as a fulltime custodian, which the city has need of said Stassen. “Two people do this kind of swing-man role in the afternoons,” said Stassen. “That employee would stay doing that. He would stay with Public Works, and we may have to reclassify a little bit. We wouldn’t be moving that position, it’s the retirement position we’d look to reclassify to a custodian. We’re not looking at a reduction in force here. At least that’s not the proposal at this time, it would be to keep our current employee. Rather then two people doing half days, it would be the equivalent of doing a full day with one person. And at times when he needs help would get a second person. That swing person would stay in Public Works, and then we’d take that retired position and reclassify it to a custodian. That’s an option, and we’ll see.”
The committee gave staff direction to price out the staffing options for reclassification, as well as for a new custodian position. Chris Kapella, a union representative for AFSCME Council 65, spoke during the open forum at City Council to share a letter sent to the City of Crookston that the union was not in favor of cutting sanitation services. Stassen said that he thinks that the fact the city is not planning to reduce force, but to reclassify might make the change more palatable for the union. “Tonight, the direction was to bring forward some numbers and put all that together,” said Stassen. “We are engaging with the union soon, and you heard on it’s face [value] they are against this. But I think after discussion with AFSCME the fact we’re not intending to have a reduction in force but just a reclassification maybe is received a little better.”
The committee also received information on submitted bids for updating to LED lights in the city’s facilities. The facilities included were the Police Department, Fire Hall, City Hall, Airport, Park Shop, Street Shop, Water Plant, Highland Park, Library, and Crookston Sports Center (CSC). Each facility was bid separately with the combined cost using the lowest bid for each facility being $126,211.38. Of those, Highland Park and the CSC had the highest bids according to City of Crookston Finance Director Angel Weasner. “The Highland Park bid was $46,798 and the CSC bid was $48,495,” said Weasner. “The other bids ranged from $1,300 to almost $7,400. We need to verify that the number of fixtures are equivalent to what we had when we did the Otter Tail [Power Company] audit and they looked at the lighting in each facility.”
Staff will review the bids for accuracy compared to the audit and present the bids at the next Ways & Means meeting. The committee received a short presentation from Patti Anderson from M&H on their ability to provide accounts for gas and fuel to businesses and entities. Anderson was requesting that the City of Crookston use M&H for their fueling. She stated that M&H uses a WEX card for business fueling, and additionally that M&H, whose policy is to match the lowest price in town, would take another 10 cents off per gallon for the City of Crookston. The committee asked Weasner to meet with Anderson to discuss solutions to past issues the city has had with using WEX accounts.
The committee also continued a previous discussion improving the appointment process for council positions. More was added to that discussion after the failure to appointment a council member during the City Council meeting. But the original point of the discussion had to with improving the questions asked during the city’s interview process. Mayor Dale Stainbrook said he’d get in touch with Councilmen Steve Erickson and Don Cavalier to meet to review suggestions that had been submitted, including some proposed questions from Councilman Tom Vedbraaten.
