ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 7, 1997 TAG: 9701070070
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
Last spring, Roanoke City Council resoundingly voted against turning residential trash collection over to an outside company, only to have a new council reverse that vote and allow private industry the opportunity to bid on it.
On Monday, after months of delay and hashing out the numbers, the new council admitted the first vote was right: for the time being, home garbage collections will remain in the hands of city crews.
By a 7-0 vote, council agreed to keep its own garbage business, while preserving the chance to save money by automating the city's labor-intensive pickups. Perhaps even more money could be saved by combining city and county garbage collections in the future, city officials say.
The action may close the door on serious attempts by private contractors to get a foothold in local residential garbage collection. And it appears that council's action ushers in "one-armed bandit" garbage trucks in Roanoke later this year.
"This is only beginning," City Manager Bob Herbert promised at a meeting of a council-administration study committee on Friday.
"We're going to change the way we do business in order to remain competitive," Herbert added.
Over the next two years, the city expects to cut 25 jobs from its Solid Waste Management Office, mostly by moving from garbage trucks operated by three-person crews to the one-armed bandit trucks, which require only a driver.
That will save taxpayers upward of $700,000 per year, although it could cost up to $3 million over the next two years to buy the trucks and the flip-top trash cans to get the program under way.
The workers will be retrained for other openings that arise in city government where practical, Herbert said. The goal is that nobody be laid off, and that workers be moved to jobs in other departments when employees leave.
Eventually, all of the city would see automated pickups, except in about 15 percent of the areas where collections are done in alleys. The change should cut the city's current garbage collection cost from $5.52 per house per month to $3.82. Roanoke County, which has the fully automated pickups, is spending $3.56 per household each month.
Even more savings may be down the road.
If city and county trash pickups were united by the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority, collections could be made for as little as $3 per household per month, according to a report unveiled Friday by a city committee studying changes to residential garbage collection.
The resource authority operates a landfill and transfer station where it disposes of trash collected in the city, county and Vinton. It hasn't moved into the collection business, but a charter change the three governments approved last year allows it to consider collecting trash, in addition to disposing of it.
But the $3 figure sounds a little low to a representative of one of the trash companies that bid on the city's residential business.
Mike Mee, a public affairs specialist for Browning Ferris Industries, noted that the resource authority has perhaps the highest disposal costs in the state. Those high disposal fees already have driven BFI to truck out of state some of the commercial waste it collects in Roanoke.
"It's kind of ironic that the regional authority that can't provide cost-effective disposal is saying that it can provide cost-effective collection," Mee said.
Councilman Jim Trout on Friday said BFI and other firms should get an opportunity to bid on combined collections if the city and county decide they want to move in that direction.
In other action Monday, council:
* Voted 5-2 to hire a Richmond lobbyist, at a cost of $21,000, to serve as the city's eyes, ears and mouth in the state capital for 1997. Thomas Dick, a contract lobbyist, will argue on behalf of the city and keep officials informed of important legislation during the General Assembly session. Dick also will work in Richmond on behalf of Roanoke city government for the remainder of the year.
Vice Mayor Linda Wyatt and Councilman Nelson Harris voted against hiring Dick. Wyatt, who serves on the council's legislative committee, was angry that she was excluded from interviewing the four applicants for the post.
Harris said he believed the city should have a full-time staffer do its lobbying in Richmond, rather than a contract lobbyist who also represents other industries, businesses and governments.
City Attorney Wilburn Dibling, who's giving up lobbying duties after 19 years of doing it as a volunteer, said Dick has no other clients at this time.
* Voted 7-0 to accept a $400,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that will fund continuation of a program that identifies homeless people and attempts to find housing and jobs for them. Roanoke Area Ministries will administer the program, which started as a pilot project last year.
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1997by CNB