Parkersburg City Council President Andrew Borkowski, left, discusses the procedure for a vote to table an ordinance regarding a recycling contract as Councilman Zak Huffman listens during Tuesday’s special council meeting at the Municipal Building. (Photo by Evan Bevins)

PARKERSBURG – Members of Parkersburg City Council voted 6-3 to approve the first reading of a contract for Waste Management to provide trash service in the city Tuesday but tabled an ordinance regarding a contract for a subscription-based recycling service.

The unanimous vote to table the ordinance for a proposed contract with Rumpke came about three hours after the 6 p.m. start of a public meeting in which 21 people spoke and asked questions of city officials regarding the municipal sanitation service and plans to contract the work out to private companies. A special council meeting with the contract ordinances on its agenda started a little after 8 p.m.

Council President Andrew Borkowski said he would entertain a motion to table the recycling contract ordinance in an effort for city officials to come up with a more “robust … equitable … fair” recycling plan.

“I think we can come up with a pretty good plan,” he said.

After some confusion and debate over how long the ordinance would be tabled – some suggested as little as a week – Councilman Zak Huffman made a motion to table it until council’s Feb. 10 meeting. That passed 9-0.

Parkersburg Mayor Tom Joyce, left, discusses his rationale for recommending Waste Management’s bid to provide trash service during a special City Council meeting Tuesday.(Photo by Evan Bevins)

During the public forum portion of the council meeting, Wayne Dunn, a member of the Wood County Solid Waste Authority board, asked council to delay a decision on the recycling contract until a meeting could be held with all municipalities about how to address recycling going forward.

“The meeting will be coming up in a couple of weeks,” he said.

Mayor Tom Joyce has said the city’s recycling facility had an operating loss of $3.8 million from fiscal year 2019 to 2025 and noted the city has never charged commercial haulers for bringing the recyclables they collected there. That included companies that provided curbside recycling in Vienna and other communities.

After the city stopped accepting material from commercial haulers on Dec. 1, Haul Away Trash, which handles Vienna’s recycling, had to take its recyclables to a different facility and changed what it would accept as a result.

The vote to approve the first reading of the trash contract with Waste Management passed 6-3, with Huffman, Councilwoman Wendy Tuck and Councilman Chris Rexroad opposed.

If approved without significant amendments on final reading at council’s Jan. 13 meeting, the company would take over solid waste collection in the city, likely sometime in March. Waste Management would charge the city $17.65 per unit, and the city would continue billing customers through its sanitation fee.

Joyce has proposed reducing the sanitation fee from $22 to $19.50 a month and giving customers who are current on payments a credit of $44, or two months, in recognition of the difficulties the service has faced over nearly a year. But those provisions are not part of the ordinance council considered Tuesday.

Residents Alisa and Dee Prince, who are sisters, questioned the administration’s decision to negotiate a contract with Waste Management when Rumpke offered an apparently lower bid to provide both solid waste and recycling services in response to the original request for proposals.

Joyce shared notes he made when reviewing the proposals as part of a committee that consisted of Councilmen Roger Brown and Andrew Borkowski and other members of the administration.

“The price was attractive to the point on trash only,” Joyce said.

Finance Director Eric Jiles said the city reserved the right to reject portions of the original solid waste and recycling proposals. Waste Management broke down the costs for theirs while Rumpke gave one price for both recycling and solid waste.

Joyce said other factors that made him lean toward Waste Management included the company’s proposed limits on the number of bags and bulky goods it would pick up.

A number of speakers pointed to how the city’s Sanitation Department has hauled off large amounts of trash over the years with no extra charge. Joyce said that is one of the factors that led to the issues the department is facing.

Rumpke’s proposal didn’t include bag limits and offered more bulky item pickups, which Joyce acknowledged was similar to the status quo.

“Is status quo the best thing for Parkersburg long-term? I don’t think it is,” he said. “I think for the community’s sake we need to transition to a change in behavior.”

Joyce added that he thought Waste Management offered more local employment opportunities.

Rexroad asked during discussion of the Waste Management contract how the city went from an included recycling cost of $4.35 to the subscription-based model with Rumpke, where people who wanted to recycle would pay $15.25 a month to do so.

“Under the original proposal, everybody paid whether they chose to recycle or not,” Joyce said.

Rexroad questioned a provision in the proposed Rumpke contract under which if less than 900 residences participated in the program, the city would have to pay the difference.

“I think we’re going to be on the hook for an awful lot of money here,” he said.

Councilwoman Sharon Kuhl called for a point of order, saying that should be discussed when council was voting on the Rumpke contract. Borkowski ruled in her favor.

The city issued a request for proposals for the recycling service in November. Rumpke was the only company to submit a proposal.

Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.