Wyo. Waste shot down

After much discussion, and some division, the Green River City Council voted against amending Wyoming Waste Systems' contract with the city, meaning the waste services, including yard waste removal, will continue as before without change. 

The issue came before the city council during Tuesday night's council meeting. Wyoming Waste Systems first spoke to the council on December 19, 2023, when they requested a fee increase in addition to the annual CPI index-based increase in order to cover costs for the recycling program. At that time, Wyoming Waste Systems Site Manager Michelle Foote also brought up the possibility of suspending the yard waste program through the winter months due to the fact that there is little yard waste to be picked up during that time. Wyoming Waste later returned with a proposal that got rid of the additional cost increase for the recycling and focused instead on the change to the yard waste pickup. Last week the council had a workshop to further discuss the contract that is in place with Wyoming Waste Systems. 

During this week's meeting, the council un-tabled the original discussion and agreed to consider approval of the amendment. In the discussion that followed, both council members and citizens expressed their disapproval of the plan to amend the contract and suspend winter yard waste pickup. 

"The way I look at this is, this is yet another example of what's going on in our entire country, and that's less services for more money," Green River Resident James Hannum said. "I just don't see where I should have to keep paying the same amount for trash removal when I'm not receiving the same services."

Resident Jared Zeke Kropf also spoke against the motion because of the reduced benefit to the citizens, pointing out the requested time frame of mid-November to mid-April is five months, and with pickup every other week, that would be 10 weeks of not getting service. 

Councilmember Ron Williams expressed his opposition to the proposal because of the loss to the citizens, saying he wished Wyoming Waste would have offered something in place of the yard waste pickup to compensate for not having it.  

"There was nothing that was provided as a benefit to the city, it was just a benefit for waste management," Councilmember Sherry Bushman agreed. 

Councilmember Gary Killpack spoke in favor of the amendment. 

"Looking at it from a business standpoint, I understand what Wyoming Waste is trying to do, because it's kind of silly to send out a truck for 40 hours during the week to pick up five or six cans," he said. 

Councilmember Killpack also noted that he personally never has much yard waste during the winter. Mayor Pete Rust added that he has spoken to several citizens who said the same thing, and he believes the history of what goes on demonstrates that the service isn't needed for that time period.

Killpack noted that he has occasionally put yard waste in with his trash, and said if he were running the business, he would have the normal garbage trucks pick up whatever yard waste there was during the winter and take it to the landfill for those couple of months. 

Michelle Foote noted that in the past, Wyoming Waste has ended up mixing some of the yard waste with the trash during the winter.

This is part of why they requested the change to the pickup program, and she wanted to be honest with the council and the city about what was happening. She said that figures for last year from December through February show that there was "a mere six tons" of yard waste taken to the transfer station by citizens, and picking up yard waste from just a few cans around the city wouldn't even amount to 100 pounds. 

"So yeah, we mixed it with the trash," Foote said. "I wanted to come to the council and be transparent about what we were doing and [ask] for something the residents were already putting in place."

She noted that without the yard waste pickup, there would still be the possibility of speaking to customers and picking up bins and taking them to the transfer station if they were full. But she noted that if there was trash mixed in a yard waste container, it would be considered an extra pickup and the customer would be charged, and she didn't want residents to become confused about picking up yard waste with trash. 

Councilmember Killpack requested to amend the original motion in order to allow Wyoming Waste to just send one truck out to pick up yard waste if it's there, rather than sending out two trucks for the full week, reiterating that "from a business standpoint it's just absolutely silly." 

Mayor Rust said he believed it was understood that it would be allowed that yard waste could be picked up if it was put out. The amendment to the motion failed for lack of a second. 

Returning to the original motion, which was to approve the amendment to the contract with Wyoming Waste Systems and allow yard waste collection to only run mid-April through mid-November, Mayor Rust called for a vote. The mayor and Councilmember Killpack voted to approve the amendment, while Councilmembers Williams, Bushman, and Robert Berg voted against it. Councilmembers Mike Shutran and George Jost were not present at the meeting. 

With the 3-2 vote, the amendment did not pass, which leaves the contract with Wyoming Waste Systems as it was. 

"So the effect of which is it goes on as business as usual, the way it was before this," Mayor Rust summarized.