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By JOE HEALEY jhealey@leader.net
Sunday, February 06, 2000 Page: 3A
WILKES-BARRE – Mayor Tom McGroarty said at a special City Council meeting
on Saturday he could hire 15 police officers or firefighters if the city
privatized its garbage collection.
McGroarty said the city could save $1.3 million and asked council members
at the special meeting, which he called, to consider the proposal. He has made
the issue one of his priorities in his second term in office.
He presented many of the hidden costs of city garbage collection and touted
the advantages of privatizing the service. He said it costs the city $1.6
million a year in labor costs, including salaries and benefits of the drivers,
laborers, mechanics and supervisors.
Another $1 million includes tipping fees, fuel, insurance on the seven
garbage packers, maintenance, tire repair, tire disposal, trash bag cost and
clutter cleanup.
The garbage program generates $1.3 million, but it costs $2.6 million,
McGroarty said. He said the city has to subsidize the $1.3 million difference
from other departments in the city, he said.
He said the city can no longer afford to subsidize trash collection through
taxes, and without privatization the cost per bag would skyrocket. John
Bergold, Wilkes-Barre’s solid waste and recycling director, agreed.
Residents pay $1.25 for a blue bag. The stores that sell them receive a
nickel for each bag. He said residents would have to pay $2.50 a bag for the
city to break even on the garbage program.
“I don’t want to sit here next October and tell the residents they have to
pay $2.50 for a garbage bag,” the mayor said. “They’d kill me.”
McGroarty’s plan would involve hiring a private company to haul and dispose
of household waste. It wouldn’t necessarily replace the present system in
which residents pay per bag for trash removal.
He said the council can continue to use the bag system or have residents
pay a flat fee and have unlimited garbage pickup.
He said if the bags were eliminated, residents would be charged a flat fee,
averaging $88 a year.
The three bids from private haulers start at about $1.4 million, or $100 to
$120 per household. It costs the city $3.2 million, or $210 per household, to
pick up garbage from 15,200 homes in Wilkes-Barre. The contract would run nine
years and would include hauling and putting the waste in a landfill.
IESI Corp. and Apex Waste Management, both of Dunmore, and J.P. Mascaro, of
Harleysville, all bid about $100 per household per year for the first three
years. The prices would go up about 2 percent each year during the course of
the contract.
Council seemed more receptive to keeping the blue bags, and the mayor
geared his proposal toward that.
Councilman Phil Latinski said if people can put out as many bags as they
want, recycling will plummet.
“We recycle not only to save money, but to preserve the environment,”
Latinski said. “We’re going backwards if you allow people to put out as much
garbage as they can.”
Councilwoman Shirley Morio Vitanovec said she was concerned privatization
means jobs would be leaving Wilkes-Barre and the wage tax income would be lost
if the trash haulers no longer work in the city.
Under the mayor’s plan, no employees would be laid off. He said he would
reassign the employees, offer early retirement incentives and thin the ranks
by attrition.
No vote on the matter is scheduled.
McGroarty said he held the meeting on a Saturday morning so residents who
normally work in the evenings could come. About 15 residents attended.
Call Healey at 829-7225.