SPRINGDALE -- Springdale's $4.5 million yearly trash pickup contract would go to a different company if the city council accepts a recommendation made Monday at the council's committee of the whole meeting.
Consulting company Solid Waste Specialists of Austin, Texas, recommends the city award the next five-year solid waste contract to CARDS Holdings Inc. of Springdale. The existing contract held by Waste Management Inc. expires at the end of this year.
CARDS offered recycling pickup every week instead of every other week under the existing contract and will provide its own customer service representatives to take customer calls, relieving city staff of the job, according to the study by Solid Waste Specialists. The specialist firm's recommendation was presented by live video by company representative Lynn Lantrip at the council committee's 5:30 p.m. meeting at the city's municipal building.
The firm conducted the study with participation from Springdale city staff. CARDS agreed to provide this expanded service for about $18.55 a month to the city's customers compared to the current $17.55 a month. The company also agreed to provide new containers for curbside pickup, to cap any fee increase to no more than 4% and to tie any rate increase to a solid waste industry-calculated figure instead of the federal consumer price index that tends to increase at a slower rate. Lantrip described the offer to the committee as "superb."
In other business, the committee heard about a $760,000 charitable contribution offered by residents Gary C. and Robin A. George to expand the city-owned Bluff Cemetery. The committee unanimously agreed to recommend acceptance of the offer at their next regular meeting on Tuesday. The contribution will allow the purchase of 7.3 acres of land and, by the expansion and the sale of new plots in the filling cemetery, help pay for maintenance of the cemetery as a whole, Mayor Doug Sprouse said at the meeting.
The committee meeting concluded with an extensive discussion involving traffic and speeding problems on Lakeview Drive. Residents attending the meeting told city officials the long, straight, east-west road that connects with U.S. 71 has been plagued by dense traffic and speeding problems for decades and those problems worsened after construction began on improvements to Zion Road in Fayetteville.
Council Member Amelia Williams proposed a resolution for the next council meeting to provide funds for speed bumps or some similar speed control impediment on the road. Sprouse objected, saying the decision of when and where to place such ridges belongs to the administration, not the council. He sympathized with residents along Lakeview, Sprouse said, but the street is a connecting road used by emergency vehicles needing unfettered access. Placing speed cushions there would not comply with the city's policy on such measures and would open the argument by residents of other neighborhoods who do not fit the policy to get such barriers on their roads. He said he and city engineers would consider temporary barriers until a more permanent solution is found.
The council unanimously passed Williams' resolution with a limit of $10,000 for such barriers on Lakeview, with the understanding the decision on using them remained with city administration under the mayor.