Wake up, Star City residents
To the editor:
Do you know that the city manager and city council are way out of budget to the amount of $400,000 and now want to cut services, which means unemployment for some city workers of the fire department, police department, public works, Forum and indoor pool? They are also thinking of raising the prices on the pay-per-throw bags and hiking the rates at the landfill. Let us take a look at what is being spent and who really is getting the money and where it is filtered.
The city of Presque Isle pays approximately $31,000 to each of the trash haulers a month, Star City and Gil’s. Each one gets approximately $372,000 for the entire year which is a flat rate to pick up or not pick up the trash. If the resident chooses to bring out their own trash, the hauler is still paid. The haulers pick up only the pay-per-bags 260 a year minus the 10 days for planned holidays that the landfill is closed. Quick math tells us the city is paying approximately $1,488 per day per hauler.
Now let’s assume that the drivers are making $15/hour with two people times 8/hours a day which would make their wages approximately $240/day. Let’s say that they use 100 gallons of diesel fuel in one week to do the runs at $5/gallon. The total price would be about $500/week in which five days would be a cost of approximately $100/day. Let’s start subtracting this from the $1,488 for each of the haulers a day. Now let’s multiply that number by 5, which would be $5,740/week and then multiply by 52 which equals $298,480 a year for each hauler. Note that this does not take care of the insurance, wear and tear on one piece of equipment that they use, and licenses. There is still a huge profit that the city is paying to the haulers. This also does not include the business account that each of these haulers have besides the city’s account.
I know that businesses are to make profits but this is a huge profit for one account. Now the city council and city manager have allowed this to happen and this could easily make it so that the pay-per-bag system does not work. The city is paying way too much to the haulers to pick up the pay-per-throw.
The first choice the city council and city manager could make is put it out to bid for picking up the pay-per-throw and the lowest bid get the contract to pick up the bags for the entire city and sub-sections. This could make it hard for the hauler and one could end up possibly going out of business.
The second choice would be the city council and city manager could pick up one more packer like the haulers use now to pick up the pay-per-throw, plus four people to operate the equipment. The public might not know that the city already owns one packer truck to haul trash that is up at the transfer station. This would only allow Star City and Gil’s to pick up business accounts which are not charged to the city but to the business. The downside to this would be are there enough business accounts to keep two haulers going. One might end up going out of business.
The third choice would be the city council and city manager scrap the pay-per-throw and return to the way it was, where customers would either contract with Star City or Gil’s and pay what they want to charge the customer. But with this change the public would also have the option to bring their own trash themselves to the landfill at the $90/ton rate that is in place now and be able to buy what trash bag they want to buy. The price would not have to be increased and would save the city approximately $744,000 a year. The city manager and city council said they need $400,000 to bring the budget under control and then have a surplus of $344,000, which should be monitored very closely by the public from this point on.
The city council and city manager are concerned about a lot more people being out to the landfill and not using the per-bag-throw. Why should these people be penalized for being smart and trying to save money while the city manager and city council spend money foolishly in hard times?
Now by picking the third choice, it shows that we saved all of what the city manager and city council want to cut out. The question comes to mind, why didn’t the city council and city manager not see that this could save the city money? Every person in this city should get in touch with each member of the council and the manager, expressing their concern about the way they are spending our money. The city manager and council should be held accountable for everything that they are doing and the money they are spending. Remember, they work for us, not the other way around.
Joan Anderson
Presque Isle
