Dan Vicari, Director, Gary Sanitary District

A clean Gary takes a lot more than picking up household trash

Contributed By:The 411 News

Gary's city council has to help resolve the problem of how much its residents will pay for trash collection. Before the body is a proposal for an additional $11.95 monthly cost over the current $16.30 residents now pay to get their trash picked up.

Looking for ways to justify the proposed $28.25 residents could be charged in 2021 is taking the council down a rabbit hole of past and current practices of Gary's mayoral administrations from Rudy Clay to Karen Freeman-Wilson to now mayor Jerome Prince.

The City of Gary isn't asking for the hike; the Gary Sanitary District is. GSD doesn't collect the trash; Republic Services does -- collecting from single-family residences and multi-family dwellings up to 4 units.

Trash collection contracts are their own breed; in Gary contract lengths are 5 years, longer than a mayor's 4-year term.

When Rudy Clay was mayor, trash collection fee hikes were mainly pushed by unions seeking more benefits for workers.

Dan Vicari, GSD Director gave the city council's Ways and Means Committee some background. Due to Indiana's tax caps in 2010, Mayor Clay privatized garbage collection because the city could no longer afford it. Waste Management got the contract and the sanitary district managed it for the city, billing residents to pay for Waste Management's pickups.

After Karen Freeman-Wilson became mayor in 2012, mutal dissatisfaction with the trash collection contract emerged. Republic Services was granted a 5-year contract in 2015 without a rate hike increase for residents. But it did include a 3% yearly increase, called an escalating cost for customers as did Waste Management's.

Residents haven't been billed the 3% since 2017. Now GSD wants to collect it for the previous 2 years of 2018, 2019, and the current year of 2020.

City council members are dancing between cuts to some services to reduce the hit on their constituents' wallets while some are saying keep or modify services.

Councilman Clorius Lay, who favors keeping all services, called it "bad timing" for the trash hike since it is coming after the approval of the property tax increase for schools and the rate adjustment NIPSCO announced earlier in the year for its heating gas customers.

2nd District Councilman Cozy Weatherspoon agrees with Lay to keep all services. He suggested the sanitary district negotiate with Republic Services and try to modify or enhance services "as it relates to dumping."

Weatherspoon was Director of the General Services Dept. for a period in the Freeman-Wilson administration. That department was eliminated and its responsibilities shared by other departments, including the sanitary district. His assessment sums up what the council will have to deal with. "When you cut costs in one area, all you're doing is shifting the burden to another area."

Curbside collecting is not a problem in the city; illegal dumping is the problem Weatherspoon says, which his district is plagued with and could be alleviated by more dropoff sites.

Trash pickups from households won't keep a city clean that is overburdened with blight and other ills caused by abandoned properties. Each of the mayors have promoted efforts towards a cleaner Gary with neighborhood cleanups, demolition and beautification programs.

Non-vegetation items and debris removed from those lands go into landfills owned by Republic Services and Waste Management, Vicari said, and the sanitary district helps pay for it. Vicari said Gary has a landfill and the sanitary district helps maintain it to satisfy EPA standards.

Trees and brush removed come to the sanitary district and are pulverized into mulch. That too has to be paid for.

Councilman William Godwin asked why should the costs of transfer sites that handle items from households and construction sites be paid by residents who don't use them.

The service is provided by the city for residents and the costs of those transfer sites is also being paid by the sanitary district.

Vicari says the GSD has cooperated more and more with the city since taking over management of the trash collection contract. On an annual basis, Republic is picking up more debris in the city and residents are dropping off more unneeded household items.

Councilman Lay has offered a solution that won't affect the trash hike but it would help the city support other services it provides to residents. The city is in the final 4 years of repaying $17 million in funds it has used from the sanitary district, with $4.3 million remaining.

Lay suggested the city and the sanitary district set up a reduced payment plan like the Gary school district did for its debt. Lengthening the term of repayment would allow the city to use the dollars elsewhere. "Mostly it would buy time until conditions improve, casino revenues increase and we're out of this COVID pandemic."

The Prince administration is considering Lay's proposal.

Atty. Trent McCain, the Gary Corporation Council said a phased-in rate hike is being considered by the sanitary district and the city administration that would delay the full implementation of the proposed $28.25 in 2021. "We can step it up gradually to get the folks used to it and get to where we need to be in a reasonable period of time."

Story Posted:11/26/2020