Texarkana Board OKs garbage rate increase
TEXARKANA, Ark. — City Board of Directors approved raising residential waste collection rates in stages, the first effective Jan. 1, during a regular meeting Monday.
The fee charged by Edmondson’s Trash Service and Richardson Waste will go up by $2 at the start of the new year. Beginning Jan. 1, 2023, and each year the haulers have a city contract thereafter, the rates will again increase, by 3% or the percentage of change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. Their current contracts expire at the end of September 2023.
Only Ward 2 Director Laney Harris voted against the resolution to amend the haulers’ contracts, which they requested.
The increase is the first since 2018 and comes after a review of the haulers’ financial records by the city finance department. The city’s Solid Waste Committee recommended the change after a meeting with City Manager Jay Ellington on Nov. 4.
Mayor Allen Brown said he supported the measure based on the finance department’s review but would expect the Solid Waste Committee, on which he serves, to have access to the haulers’ records in the future.
“We do have a Solid Waste Committee in place, and I feel like in the future those financials should be disclosed to at least that committee for review. … People that do business with the city, that’s how they all do it. And I would like to see that happen going forward,” he said.
The Board also approved a request from the owners of two acres at PR-1015 and South Rondo Road to be annexed into the city limits. The city Planning Commission recommended approving the request and zoning the tract, which includes a single-family home, as rural residential.
Also approved were a pair of rezoning requests. One rezones a tract at 4400 Old Blackmon Ferry Road from rural residential to the recently created mixed use rural designation to allow the continued operation of a small business there. The other rezones property at 308 Senator St. from wholesale and warehousing to medium density residential to allow housing development there.
The Board also voted by consent to approve a contract worth more than $146,000 to replace electrical conduit and wiring for overhead lights on the median of Interstate 30. R&W Electric of Texarkana, Arkansas, was the low bidder for the contract.
Also approved by consent was purchase of a dual-engine vacuum truck for Texarkana Water Utilities. Total cost is more than $434,400. The Arkansas side’s portion is just over $168,200, with the Texas side paying the remainder.