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Youngstown council considers borrowing $1M for trash bins
YOUNGSTOWN
City council will consider legislation today to borrow up to $1,075,000 over 10 years to provide 96-gallon garbage receptacles for its residential trash customers.
The proposal calls for the city to spend up to $50 for 21,500 of the garbage bins with an interest rate of up to 3.5 percent.
The bins have a useful life of up to 15 years, said city Finance Director David Bozanich.
The proposal, which authorizes the board of control to make the purchase, comes while the city is looking for a new company to handle its garbage collection. Proposals for the work are to be submitted to the city by Feb. 26.
The city is ending its contract with Waste Management Inc. on April 30 after the city received complaints about service though it resolved scheduling problems with the company recently.
That contract was for $8.45 a month per customer.
With the new receptacles, the city expects the cost of a new garbage-collection contract to be about 10 percent cheaper, Bozanich said. That savings would cover the expense of the bins, he said.
The receptacles reduce the cost because they attach to garbage trucks making collection quicker and easier, Bozanich said.
The bins will make the city cleaner as smaller metal and plastic cans, lids and garbage wouldn’t be on the streets and the receptacles will look better than the current situation, he said.
“We should be able to fit a ton of trash in the new bins and they’re aesthetically pleasing,” said Mayor John A. McNally.
The money borrowed to buy the bins will come from the city’s environmental fund, which is receiving a huge financial boost starting with the monthly rate increased by $5 on Dec. 1 to $19.75. It goes up to $22.25 on April 1, and then to $24.75 on July 1. To offset that increase, the city reduced its monthly water rate by $10.
The reason for the change is to use money — about $2.6 million annually when fully implemented – from the environmental sanitation fund for demolition.
Council will consider an ordinance today to give the board of control authority to seek proposals to spend up to $2.5 million this year for demolition along with site clearance, backfill, grading and asbestos abatement.
Council will also consider legislation to have the board of control hire a law firm and pay up to $50,000 to defend the city in a lawsuit filed by five Youngstown water customers who question the legality of using water and wastewater funds for economic development.
The lawsuit, filed Feb. 4 in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, contends the city violates state law and the city charter by using water and wastewater surplus to give grants and payments to businesses for projects not related to providing water and sewer services to its customers.
The lawsuit cites an Oct. 11, 2015, Vindicator article about the city’s providing $2.73 million – with an additional $520,000 pending – to businesses, mostly in downtown, since 2010 from the water and wastewater funds.
City officials say the money is for the water and wastewater expenses of those projects, and legal.
Also today, council is being asked to allow the board of control to give $500,000 in water and wastewater funds to the Central YMCA of Youngstown, which is planning a $5 million renovation project of its location at 17 N. Champion St.