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Council eager for meeting with Bridge City Sanitation

Ottumwa Courier - 12/7/2022

Dec. 7—OTTUMWA — The Ottumwa City Council expressed its continued hope that it can meet with Bridge City Sanitation officials after city administrator Philip Rath and director of community development Zach Simonson had their own with the sanitation provider recently.

The city awarded the 10-year trash-collection contract to Bridge City last year, but officials have not given any kind of public update to the council in that time. The meeting Rath and Simonson had discussed the status of the equipment, timing of operations, customer service, etc.

"One of the things they wanted to relay out of the meeting was debris. Under the contract, when people put garbage in the cans, it's supposed to be bagged," Rath said. "If there's a bunch of loose stuff that flies out, they aren't responsible for picking that up as part of the contract.

"If it's properly bagged, and a bag tears, that would be under their scope of cleaning that up."

However, when he mentioned the council wanted to speak with them at a meeting, Rath said there was apprehension.

"There was some general concern or hesitation on what that might look like. Would it be productive?" Rath said. "Or would it be like a picture of Senate hearings where you got somebody sitting up there and getting fired questions?"

Council members Marc Roe and Cara Galloway believed it should be in Bridge City Sanitation's best interest to speak before the council.

"It's one of our biggest contracts," Galloway said. "I still want them here, but I think we need to review their contract and maybe see if we can get a clause about presenting to the council. We have GOPIP, the airport, and multiple other entities that give reports. I don't understand why we can't have them here."

Roe agreed, saying the company vowed transparency before being awarded the contract.

"You know, they're saying that there's some hesitation to come before city council, but that was one of the things they had explicitly said during the bidding process was that they would be willing to come before city council," he said.

"After all, this contract is with the taxpayers of Ottumwa. I would think that they would have some responsibility to answer any questions they might have about their services are being paid for by the citizens of Ottumwa."

Rath did say Bridge City was in the process of getting a truck updated, which is supposed to be done once every three years under contract, and that would start the cycle for the rest of the fleet.

Roe, who said pickup times have improved in his neighborhood, said one of the major sticking points with Bridge City was the age of its fleet. He's fielded complaints about the trucks leaking trash into the streets.

"When we actually did the bidding process for this contract, one of the biggest issues was the age of the trucks, and the sewage that's falling out into the streets," he said. "We were assured at that point in time that new trucks were going to be on the street and ordered just as soon as the contract was ratified.

"And now we're hearing a year and months later that they're finally starting to order new trucks. That's a little bit of a concern to me."

Mayor Rick Johnson also said he's heard complaints in the past year, specifically about trash falling out of trucks and "poor customer service."

"I realize sometimes citizens get angry when they call in and complain about things, but you have to go ahead and put yourself at a higher level to deal with those kind of complaints in a professional and tactful manner," Johnson said.

"To be clear, you can't control people not putting things in their garbage cans correctly. I fully agree with that," Roe said. "But it's not the neighborhood's fault that liquid garbage is falling out of the bottom of the garbage truck. That's their responsibility."

Rath said he'd continue discussions to put a Bridge City visit on a future agenda.

"If they can make it great," he said. "If not, that will speak volumes as well."

Chad Drury can be reached at cdrury@ottumwacourier.com, and on Twitter @ChadDrury

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