Trustees to review fees at meeting

Stillwater Utility Authority trustees will review how much trash collection, recycling and clean streets costs customers at their Monday meeting.The Authority Board will meet after the Stillwater City Council meeting at the Stillwater Municipal Building, 723 S. Lewis Street. The City Council meeting will start at 5:30 p.m.The authority needs to include recycling fees in the 2013 Waste Management fee schedule, Stillwater Waste Management Manager Chris Knight said in a report to trustees.The Waste Management Division needs to purchase a fluorescent light bulb crusher as part of the consumer conversion from incandescent light bulbs, he said. The crusher would recycle compact fluorescent bulbs as well as fluorescent tubes.Knight recommends the authority create a fluorescent bulb disposal fee of 25 cents per bulb to cover the SUA's cost for disposing of the crushed light bulbs at the city's Convenience Collection Center.The citywide recycling program, adopted on Nov. 5, should be implemented in 2013. The program will add $1.57 a month to a customer's bill whether the customer decides to recycle or not. The trustees need to add this cost to the fee schedule, Knight said.

Trustees also need to examine expanding the curbside recycling program to customers outside the city limits.Customers could save money by switching to a smaller trash cart because they won't be putting as much garbage into trash carts if they recycle.The initial plan didn't include customers outside the city limits, Knight said, to ensure customers inside the city limits could be accommodated."It has become apparent that including the outside city limit customers will not adversely impact the inside the city limits service," Knight said, adding the additional recyclables collected from customers outside the city limits would benefit the curbside recycling program.Knight is recommending one rate decrease. He is asking the SUA trustees to reduces the street sweeping fee from $1.88 a month to $1.63.The Waste Management Division can accommodate the decrease because daily operations are more efficient and the division has added a regenerative air sweeper."The annual detailed financial analysis of the program indicates that the cost of providing the service has been reduced. Therefore, staff is proposing that the savings be passed to the utility customers in the form of a rate reduction," he said.