Council closer to fire levy

Trash collection under review

A new fire levy is closer to the November ballot and a change in trash service is up for consideration.

Lorain City Council on July 25 voted 9-0 for the first resolution necessary to ask voters to consider a five-year, 1.7-mill fire levy on the November ballot. The levy would raise enough to cover the $1.4 million budget gap that led to cuts in the Lorain Fire Department this year, Mayor Chase Ritenauer has said.

There was no discussion on the issue in the July 25 special meeting, but fire Chief Tom Brown

attended and said the department is ready to get to work promoting the issue.

The first levy vote followed months of debate about how to cut spending and shore up revenues in 2016. This year the city of Lorain has budgeted a drop in income tax collections largely due to job cuts at Republic Steel and U.S. Steel Corp.

The city’s budget situation led to the layoff of 22 firefighters and a half dozen suggestions by Ritenauer to raise money.

Council also voted 9-0 to accept a federal grant that will pay for laid-off Lorain firefighters to return to work. That money is expected to last two years, so the administration and Council are pursuing a longer term source of revenue to pay for fire protection.

The resolution approved July 25 is the first of two needed. The resolution asks the Lorain County Auditor’s Office to certify how much money the levy would raise.

Once the auditor’s office returns that document to the city, Council will consider it and vote on the resolution to ask the Lorain County Board of Elections to put the question to the voters.

The deadline is Aug. 10 to file for the November election. Clerk of Council Nancy Greer said another special call of Council could be on Aug. 8, but that meeting date is not final yet.

Meanwhile, Council moved to second reading an ordinance that would allow the city administration to renegotiate Lorain’s waste hauling contract.

The city administration will change the contract to implement automated trash collection. In that method, residents take their garbage to the curb in wheeled cans or “carts” and a waste hauling truck

picks up the refuse.

The city legislation refers to Browning-Ferris Industries of Ohio Inc.; city documents from the contract from 2013 also refer to Republic Services, another company name.

The documents with the legislation included some details about how the program could work in Lorain.

The city would have three, one-year waste hauling contract extensions from Jan. 1, 2019, to Dec. 31, 2021. The added terms are needed to pay for the hauler to spend $2.1 million on new containers at and least $1.5 million on trucks.

The hauler would provide one 96-gallon container for garbage and one 64-gallon container for recycling materials. Eligible seniors would get a 64-gallon trash container if needed.

Bulk collection would be one week a month for items such as furniture, television sets and other items.

Yard waste collection would be weekly, running April 15 to Nov. 30 yearly, picked up in brown paper bags or 32-gallon covered containers marked “yard waste.”

Starting in January 2017, landlords would be required to use a 12-cubic yard roll-off container for move-outs and evictions.

The change in trash collection would net a grant of $300,000 for the city from the Lorain County Solid Waste District and could lead to future grants for communities that promote recycling.

City garbage bills would go up $1.30 a month but would remain at or near the lowest in the county, Ritenauer has said.

On July 25, Council had no discussion about the issue, but it found support of at least six Council members in a July 18 committee meeting. For years city residents have resisted the cart system of trash collection and naysayers also spoke as part of the July 18 committee meeting.