THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 31, 1995 TAG: 9503300154
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
A single private hauler, armed with a city franchise, could be trucking commercial refuse out of the resort area within a year.
That's the long-range aim of the City Council, which voted Tuesday night to keep the city in the trash collection business at the Oceanfront until a private service can be decided upon.
An 8-2 council vote allows the city to continue commercial trash hauls at the resort through September. At that time Oceanfront business operators will be polled on their preferences in private services.
A proviso, included by the council, requires resort merchants to pay 33 percent of the added cost of the extended service, which would amount to an estimated $187,000.
If Oceanfront operators agree by mid-September, the city would grant a refuse collection contract to a single private hauler, who would then take over a service provided by the city since the 1960s. The hauling franchise would be put up for bid and City Manager James K. Spore said a private contractor could be on the job within a year.
The plan met with approval of Oceanfront business organizations representing innkeepers, restaurateurs and retailers.
``My biggest concern,'' said Rick Anoia, president of the Resort Leadership Council, an umbrella group representing all business interests, ``is that we maintain the aesthetics of the resort area.''
The city has spent nearly $63 million to beautify the tourist district in the past 10 years and Anoia and other business owners fear that piecemeal daily refuse pickups would mar the Oceanfront facelift.
``A franchise of the beach seems to be the only reasonable solution,'' Anoia said prior to the council meeting. ``If we go to too many private haulers, there'll be too many Dumpsters on the street and it would become unsightly. We don't want the stink and the gook and everything else.''
The city has been trying for several years to get out of the commercial trash hauling game because it is costly and because the service is available to only 1 percent of the 20,000 businesses operating citywide in Virginia Beach.
Many Oceanfront business operators - especially those who have had their trash and garbage picked up daily by city waste hauling trucks - want to stay with the city service, because it is reliable and clean.
A questionnaire circulated March 10 by the city among 309 resort strip business operators sought their opinions on granting a trash collection franchise to a single private hauler or allowing individual businesses to negotiate their own private hauling deals.
Continued municipal service was not an option.
Of the 61 who responded to this survey, 31 preferred an unfranchised private collection service while 30 preferred a franchised service linked to a single hauler.
Vice Mayor W.D. Sessoms Jr. said Tuesday that a second survey is needed, because only a small portion of resort businesses were open when the March poll was conducted. He wants a second survey to be made in September.
If the single franchise plan prevails, the council would give one contractor a permit to haul commercial trash for some 300 businesses between Rudee Inlet and 42nd Street. A little more than 100 now use the daily service, while the rest pay for independent private refuse pickups.
Voting against the six-month extension of the collection service were council members Nancy K. Parker and Robert K. Dean. Councilman Linwood O. Branch III abstained because his family owns an Oceanfront hotel. by CNB