Fort Smith directors vote to put automated trash service on ballot

— Fort Smith city directors passed an ordinance Tuesday to place on the Nov. 6 ballot an initiative to automate all residential trash collection in Fort Smith.

City Clerk Sherri Gard said during the meeting that she had certified as sufficient the petitions circulated in Fort Smith this summer and the ballot title. The directors’ vote on the election was a formality for the Sebastian County Election Commission, she said.

The directors approved the ordinance 6-1. Director Steve Tyler voted against it, saying the directors had already voted on the issue Aug. 23 and there was no need to vote on it again.

Directors voted at theirAug. 23 meeting to discontinue having trash collected by crews of workmen in favor of using special trash-collecting trucks that can be operated by a single driver, but the organizer of the petition drive said it was important to follow through with an election.

“If the voters approve the initiative, the board will have to have a vote of at least five members instead of four, to amend or abolish the ordinance,” Joel Culberson wrote in an e-mail Tuesday.

The directors voted unanimously Aug. 23 to change the policy after opponents to automated trash collection decided to drop their opposition.

Director Phil Merry said Tuesday that he and the three other directors who supported the opposition,were contacted before that August meeting by the opponents who said they did not want such a controversy hold back city progress. They said it was time to move on, he said.

Fort Smith is in the sixth year of a $3 million conversion of residential trash collection from manual to automated. Sanitation Department Director Baridi Nkokheli said 86 percent of the city’s households have been converted to automated collection. Converting the final 4,100 households to automated service will begin in early December, he said.

Fort Smith has 28,000 residential trash customers, he said.

Under the automated system, one person drives a specially designed truckthat uses a mechanical arm to grab trash containers and dump them, doing the work of three men, Nkokheli said, making trash collection more efficient and less expensive.

He said automated trash collection, if fully implemented, will save each residential trash customer $1.10 on a monthly sanitation bill of $14.38. He said he plans to propose such a rate decrease to city directors next year.

Culberson said that even though most of the city’s residential customers have automated trash collection, a victory in the election is not assured. He said that as he circulated the petition, many residents were unaware of the advantages of automated collection.

Opposition to automatedtrash collection arose in some neighborhoods that have alleys after residents learned that the special trucks cannot collect trash in alleys because those roadways are narrow and have power lines and trees close by. All automated collections have to be done curbside.

Residents in some of those neighborhoods said alleys were installed so that trash would not be collected in front yards. Many of those residents complained that it would be inconvenient to have to wheel the containers around to the front yard.

The city directors voted 4-3 in March to allow one of those neighborhoods - Park Hill East in central Fort Smith - to use manual collection.

Others neighborhoods followed suit, sparking the petition drive for the election to make residential trash collection automated throughout the city.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 09/05/2012

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