By Joe Ragusa
BLOOMINGTON – The Bloomington City Council is again delaying a vote on a fee increase for curbside bulk waste pickup.
“This is like a bad Halloween movie,” Mayor Tari Renner said. “You’ve had Halloween 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12. It just keeps coming back.”
The proposed fee was two free buckets of bulk waste, then $20 for the third bucket and $40 for every bucket after that.
Alderwoman Joni Painter said the fee would be hard for city staff to implement.
“I think the two free bucket loads are going to be an administrative nightmare,” Painter said.
Alderwoman Karen Schmidt said there were too many uncertainties with the proposal.
“I was coming in here prepared to support this, but the questions are unbelievable,” Schmidt said. “Let’s keep it simple.”
Two aldermen were ready to put the issue to rest, but for different reasons. Alderwoman Diana Hauman said she has full faith in city staff to effectively monitor a system where Bloomington residents have two free bulk waste pickups every year before a fee system kicks in.
“We don’t want to do this, we don’t want to do that, we don’t want to do something else. Well, it’s time for us to decide what we do want to do,” Hauman said. “I say give staff a chance to work on this. They may come back and say they need to revise or amend it somehow. If they think they can do it, I’m going to vote for it.”
Alderman Kevin Lower also wanted to vote on the proposal, but he would have voted against it.
“We’ve got bigger issues with (the solid waste) program and I’m afraid that we’re causing more problems than we’re solving,” Lower said.
The council did approve the expenditure of $683,800 for a new fire truck. It also waived the formal bidding process to grant Farnsworth Group a consulting contract for the Lake Bloomington Wastewater Facility Plan Update worth $49,687.
Joe Ragusa can be reached at [email protected].
