Remarks by Cathey Rusing
222 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 7 of 9
Thank you, Judge. Good to hear from you.
Thank you. Well said. And our community is grateful to all of you for serving for our betterment.
Emily, I have a question. What happens if we don't adopt these rates at this moment? What if we wait for, I know you've already done an internal review, but what if we wait for the more comprehensive consultants
Because, so this is pretty much a Band-Aid approach until we can come up with a plan. Yes. Because I don't feel like we've, at this moment, we've taken enough time to look at all the options because I just want to let the public know that our options are basically cut services or increase fees. And we're a full service community. So do you want your trash picked up only every other week? Do you want to have to haul your Christmas tree to the transfer station? Do you want to haul all your hazardous waste whenever you clean out your garage to the transfer station? Because that's what we used to…
Okay. I see you there. Lois is first, though. I have her on first in line.
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Yeah, Brady, I have a comment too. We're currently spending $30,000 a month to haul our recycles to the city of Phoenix. And is it just, are those, is that hauling a job going out to bid? Do we get tons of bidders for it or do we just get one bidder every year? How does that work?
But we need to make an effort to put the word out and get more haulers to bid because there's a lot of people out there that would love to have the city business. Another question I have, this contract came across my desk for $370,000 for plastic refuse and recycling containers with related technology services. solutions to extend the expiration date and add funds. Do you know what this means? Plastic refuse?
All right. Thank you. I'll get back to that at the next item. Any other comments? Mary?
Thank you. Do we have any public comment? We do. Ken Fedeck?
Thank you, Ken. That's all, Mayor. Okay. Do I hear a motion?
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
I have a comment. Didn't Patriot Disposal go to the state legislature and get a law change so that they could compete picking up trash here in the city of Prescott and they can pick up businesses but not residential? So we already have private haulers servicing our businesses.
OK, so we are being competitive with some of the private haulers and people can change if they want. They don't want to use the city of Prescott. They can use another hauler if they have a business.
Is there a representative from Burns and McDonald's here?
Would it be possible to ask them to increase the scope of their study to look at maybe privatization and efficiencies rather than just studying rates?
Okay, thank you. Let's see who's next. Ted?
Any other comments? Yeah, I'm wondering if we're overthinking this. You've been with the city for how long in the solid waste department, Brady?
12 years. So I think you and your team, I'm a frequent visitor to the transfer station, and I think you run a pretty... efficient operation out there. So maybe we're just overthinking this and maybe we really don't need a consultant and we can just solve this problem ourself by looking at getting some public input about maybe consolidating our services, maybe having one central point for people to put their Christmas trees. I have an artificial one myself. I haven't had a real tree in years. And maybe we'll have to go back to if you clean out your garage, you have to wait till we have our…
Okay, do we have any public comment? No, Mayor. What?
Okay, well, I did get a letter from Matthew Cordua. He couldn't make it here today because he is a caretaker for his wife. And he says, I understand the solid waste fund is facing a deficit, but asking residents to pay the full increase on October 1 before the planned consultant-led rate study is finished means we are being asked to cover the shortfall without seeing the full plan for efficiencies, service options, or long-term cost controls. I respectfully ask council to postpone this vote or at a minimum consider a smaller interim increase, a senior or low-income consideration, and a phased…
Yes, this contract is costing us $30,000 a month to haul our recyclers, recycles to the city of Phoenix. I looked at their website and they said that 20 to 30% of the recycles are rejected because it's not clean. Apparently your recycling items have to be clean. They specifically talked about greasy cardboard pizza boxes. So they're pretty strict, and especially if you put a liner in your blue can and bag it, it automatically goes to the landfill. So if we're going to continue with this program, we need to re-educate the people and have more clear handouts so they understand what they can…
Because that's true, the Chinese decided they didn't need any of our recyclings, they had enough from other sources. And so there just isn't a market for them anymore. Mary, do you have a comment?
Do you have a number as to how much money we're losing or how much it's costing us, the recycling program?