After months of discussions with officials, contractors, businesses and residents, the Jefferson City Council approved the final draft seeking proposals on the city's solid waste contract.
At the council meeting Monday, Janice McMillan, director of Planning and Protective Services, went through the latest changes to the draft since a council work session last week. The request for proposals, or RFP, offers two scenarios - one for organized collection and an exclusive contract, as currently provided by Allied Waste, and another for open market services for businesses.
The open market consideration stems from input from many local business owners, including a list of 38 businesses known as the Jefferson City Commercial Trash Alliance, which supports an open market for trash services to allow businesses to negotiate their own contracts.
In November 2009, the city entered into a six-year contract with Allied Waste for exclusive service to city residents. Though several companies had expressed an interest in bidding on the service, Allied was the only bid received by the city. An ordinance passed earlier that year made the service mandatory, and not subscribing to it is a violation of city code.
McMillan said changes were made to the RFP to give the city the option of negotiating contracts for food composting, which came out of comments from a representative of Bluebird Composting, out of Fulton, who asked to be allowed to pick up food waste from restaurants and grocery stores. McMillan specified that, in order to further pursue composting, the council would have to change city code as food waste currently falls under solid waste.
The current contract with Allied Waste ends Oct. 15 and McMillan said staff would expect to have a recommendation on a solid waste contractor to the council by Sept. 8. Because of the short time that leaves before the end of the current contract, McMillan said she likely would return to the council in the next month to request a short extension of the current contract with Allied Waste.
In other business, the Fire Department and Police Department honored several employees for their work in the community. Capt. Steve Holtmeier with the Fire Department received the 2015 Red Cross Fire Service Hero Award for his involvement helping a young girl at a restaurant who had choked on her meal.
• Kenneth Marsch, a retired reserve volunteer officer with the Police Department received a key to the city for his more than 25,000 hours of volunteer work with the department throughout the past 25 years.
• Sgt. Andrew Lenart was honored for meritorious service for his work developing, enacting and maintaining an electronic ticketing program that resulted in "more effective and efficient police service."
• Officer Chris Gosche was honored for meritorious service for his involvement with a middle school student who had attendance issues. Gosche's work led to finding the child lived in "dangerously filthy living conditions" with an active methamphetamine lab in the basement. The student was removed from the residence and is now succeeding in school, according to his grandparents.
• Officer Meredith Friedman received the medal of honor for her involvement in a structure fire where, as the first emergency responder on scene, she entered the burning residence after hearing voices and successfully guided two people out of the home.
• Officer Jason Sederwall received the medal of honor for his work in responding to an injury accident in 2013 where he and another officer worked to save the life of Katherine O'Neal, who had been trapped in a burning vehicle.