The council, during its regular monthly meeting Monday night, awarded a $106,104 bid to Consolidated Disposal to install cart lifts on the city’s trucks and provide garbage cans for city residents.
Public works superintendent Richard Moore said he hopes to have the sanitation carts delivered to residents and the newly equipped trucks in service by June 1. The equipment will reduce labor costs to the city.
“We’ll be able to pick up the same amount of garbage with one truck as we do with two now,” he said.
Moore said the city plans distribute a letter to residents with detailed information about the change. The trucks should be ready to roll in about 10 days, but the carts will take a little longer to receive and distribute to houses, he said.
Automating trash pickup will save money in the long run, Moore said. Workers will only run one truck instead of two, yet service will be completed 50 to 75 percent faster. The second truck will remain in the city’s fleet as a backup.
Worker’s compensation premiums will also be lowered, he said.
“The worker’s compensation premiums (for sanitation workers) are nearly double what it is for other employees, just by the nature of the jobs that they do,” Moore said. “They can step in a ditch and hurt their ankle or pick up a bag that’s too heavy and strain their back. We’ve had them get hit in the eye with limbs. Just about anything you could think of that could happen, has happened.”
Moore said even with fewer employees on the garbage detail, no employees would lose their jobs with the city. Workers will be shifted into other departments.
In other business Monday:
- The council approved the $7,500 fee for a fireworks display on Friday, July 4.
- The council increased its fixed asset designation from $1,000 to $2,000. The increase changes the limit at which items in the city’s inventory are classified as small equipment or capital assets.
- The council approved the 2002 city audit. City manager Johnnie Arnold said LaFayette was one of few cities to have a positive cash flow at the end of the year.
- The council amended a city ordinance, adding Foster Boulevard and Patterson Avenue to the list of streets where semi-trailer trucks are prohibited.
- The council approved LaFayette Recreation Department director Patti Scott’s recommendations for spring and summer uniform and equipment bids awarded to multiple vendors, spring picture bids awarded to Red Apple Studios, concession bids to Cathy Tucker and fence maintenance bids to Quality Fence Co.
- The council re-appointed Robert Jones, Vivian Ellis and Gladys Whiteside to the LaFayette Hospital Authority.
The next City Council meeting is scheduled for Monday, April 14, at 7:30 p.m. in City Hall on South Duke Street
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