When it was time for community comment at the end of the Monday Fishers City Council meeting, a young man named Skyler Braun stepped up to the microphone. He recently started an e-mail newsletter (www.FishersDigest.com) focused on Fishers news with a bit of an irreverent bent, aimed at a younger audience.
Skyler wanted to provide results of a poll he conducted among his readers – should the city look into a contract with one trash removal company? There were 220 responses with 89% saying they want a city-wide trash contract with one company. The reason provided most often in the comments, according to Skyler, wasn’t cost, it was centered on service issues.
The most common complaint cited was having the trash collection truck miss picking up a resident’s trash.
Mayor Scott Fadness said he has tasked his Chief of Staff, Jordin Alexander, with preparing a work session presentation to the City Council, explaining the steps that must be taken to explore the possibility of such a contract.
Ten years ago, the Town of Fishers went through the process, but public comments were heavily against the idea of a city-wide trash collection contract. With only two trash collection firms offering service now, it is possible the public mood has changed.
Fadness added that he recently spoke with one Homeowners’ Association (HOA) president that said his neighborhood will pay 45% more to renew their trash collection contract for the same amount of service.
I would like a trash company that charges consistently from one customer to the next. You can ask various people on my street and we all have different rates even though we have the same number of trash and recycle containers. The gas and electric companies have consistent rates so why can’t the trash services do the same?
Because trash, somehow, isn’t seen as a public utility and escapes a lot of regulation?
I haven’t had to complain for a long time about trash because our HOA had a contract with Rays. Before that with Republic, we found every single person on our street was paying something different for the exact same service. When Waste Management bought Rays, they said they don’t do contracts with HOAs and canceled our deal. Since then, we’ve had our trash missed on multiple occasions. And our bill has almost doubled for the same service.
Larry you can delete if you feel needed. But, speaking about trash (although this is off topic) I feel there should be a regulation that prohibits political commercials from airing no sooner than 2 months before the election. These early political commercials are extremely irritating.
Larry, I’m very favorably impressed with your reporting on an online newspaper that could be considered as competing with yours. If I subscribe to the new one, I will still keep reading yours.
Yes: I would support a Fishers City contract for trash pick up. We haven’t really had problems on Clubhouse Dr. one container plus occasional yard/leaf/waste. we are currently on Waste Management at 51.75 per qtr.