Saint Paul reaches an “agreement” on Cuban North Korean Sopranos-style trash collection.
After 14 months of negotiations, seven contract proposals and 10 drafts, St. Paul officials say they have reached an agreement for coordinated collection with the city’s 15 private waste haulers. The city council will vote on the contract next Wednesday and set rates the following week.
“This contract allows us to provide residents with efficient and equitable service at reasonable and uniform rates,”
The “Reasonable and uniform rate” is, naturally, about $5 a month higher than I’ve been paying for the past five years.
Which will, of course, help pay the salary of at least another DFL-union-dues-paying city employee.
Mayor Chris Coleman said in a written statement. “It also ensures that all current haulers will maintain their market share, which was one of my top priorities. It is the right direction for garbage collection in Saint Paul.”
Bobby Stewart, head of operations with Highland Sanitation, said while he and other haulers had been opposed to coordinated collection, “it is a plan that we can live with and shouldn’t endanger our ability to survive as a business.”
City officials say the proposal incorporates most — though not all — of their 17 goals, from implementing predictable rates and services to reducing the number of trucks on city streets.
Crime is rising. The city’s tax and employment bases are shrinking. The achievement gap is among the worst in the nation; the public schools are collapsing.
But hey, we’ve got “coordinated” trash collection.
Saint Paul city government; stupid and worthless.
It also ensures that all current haulers will maintain their market share, which was one of my top priorities.
In other words, remove competition which drives innovation and keeps prices down. Another failed goobernment-led program. Why do libturds hate environment and their substituents so much? But more importantly, why do sheeople allow themselves to be led by the nose ring into oblivion and servitude?
Did they keep the part where all the trucks are required to blow soap bubbles from their exhaust pipes and have DFL bumper stickers?
For the first decade that I was in practice, I had the contract to serve as City Attorney for several small cities in central Minnesota. When city councils contemplated organized garbage collection to cut down on truck traffic to save the streets, the City Engineer would point out the problem is heavy vehicles making twice-a-day trips when load limits are on – those are the vehicles that tear up the streets. Not garbage trucks. Busses. You want to save the streets? Make your kids walk to school. When challenged, he’d point to bus stops – the street in front of a bus stop is always beat up, just in that one spot, because that’s where the heavy vehicle goes.
Didn’t do any good to speak the truth – nobody wanted to hear it. They just wanted those damned garbage trucks off the streets.
On the other hand, it’s nice that Mayor Coleman admits “It also ensures that all current haulers will maintain their market share . . . .” Creating barriers to new firms entering the market to offer better service at lower prices, that’s the St. Paul way. It worked so well with the Comcast cable franchise.
.
You want to save the streets?
Silly JD, the answer is obviously more LRT!
If only the buses went just twice a day. Typically we’re talking 10-20 times per day, plus school buses, FedEx, Post Office, UPS…..
….and really, if big trucks do a disproportionate amount of damage, akin to that of city buses, we do have the possibility that we could impose stiff taxes and registration fees to cover that damage.
And yes, in calculating the cost of transit, we need to impose these on city buses, too.