MORGANTOWN — Morgantown City Council touched on a couple of municipal hot-button issues on Tuesday as both parking and trash collection appeared on its committee-of-the-whole agenda.
Following the body’s recent approval of the new five-year contract with trash and recycling hauler Republic Services, an update to the city’s solid waste law is necessary.
Council moved the updated solid waste law forward for consideration.
Included in the law is a fee schedule that varies from that included in a previous copy of the updated contract with Republic.
The change comes primarily from a new, monthly charge of 75 cents that will give customers the ability to have one monthly pickup of electronics, such as old computers or televisions.
City Manager Paul Brake explained that customers will have to call Republic and set up a special pickup for electronics. Regardless of whether a customer takes advantage of the service, the charge will be included in their monthly bill. The cost of the electronics recycling jumps 5 cents in each year of the contract.
As an example, for the first year of the contract — which ends Sept. 30 — the base rate of trash and recycling collection is
$16.38, plus 75 cents for electronics, plus $1 for billing through the Morgantown Utility Board (MUB) comes to a total of $18.13, before the addition of the state-regulated fuel surcharge.
The rate totals for the remaining four years, minus the fuel surcharge, are: $18.67, $19.23, $19.80 and $20.39.
Brake explained that the solid waste law also removed obsolete language, including references to things like the city’s sanitation department, which no longer exists. It also addresses a common issue pertaining to commercial dumpster collections.
“This establishes minimum standards,” Brake said. “Why is that important? So we don’t have a commercial customer under-sizing a dumpster that’s overflowing with trash, causing a lot of problems,” Brake said. “The minimum standard says if you have a building or structure this size, then you need to have a larger dumpster as opposed to going cheaper with one that’s too small.”
In other news from Tuesday’s meeting, council held a lengthy discussion about a draft law creating standards for requests pertaining to blue-curb parking.
Blue-curb parking in Morgantown dates back to the ’90s, when curbs in South Park received a coat of blue paint, signifying those sections of on-street parking as reserved for permit holders.
The law would not alter the size or regulations of existing blue-curb districts, of which there are seven according to information shared when the topic was raised in January.
Instead, City Attorney Ryan Simonton explained, the law would set the defaults for the creation of new districts.
Council ultimately opted not to move the issue forward immediately as there were some objections to parts of the draft law that they hope to discuss at an April 16 meeting of the Neighborhood Coordinating Council.
Among the portions questioned is an option for each residence to have up to three permanent passes or two permanent passes and one visitor pass. There were also questions raised about a new fee schedule proposed in the law, as well as the fact that it would give the city manager leeway to handle changes affecting up to 10 percent of a district administratively.
Council also:
- Received an annual report and an update on the five-year strategic plan of the Morgantown Municipal Green Team.
- Learned that April is Child Abuse Prevention Month and heard about various efforts going on locally to that end.
