The Bartlesville City Council will hold a special meeting today at 5 p.m. to hear results from the Solid Waste Survey conducted by consultants earlier this year and information pertaining to two City elections planned for next year. The meeting will be held at City Hall, 401 S. Johnstone Ave. Council meetings are typically held on Mondays; however, the special meeting was called for Tuesday due to scheduling conflicts. All meetings are open to members of the public.
Solid Waste Survey results
The City contracted with NewGen Strategies and Solutions to conduct an online survey to help determine what solid waste services residents would like to see implemented and how much they would be willing to pay for additional services, including recycling, trash collection, street sweeping and other temporary or seasonal collections or drop-off programs.
NewGen representatives will make a presentation today regarding results of the survey. Results from the written report show the following findings:
Recycling
Survey results indicate a significant percentage of people aren’t aware of the current recycling drop off center location, located on 10th Street east of Virginia Avenue, and that a significant percentage are interested in a curbside recycling program with slightly more than 50 percent of respondents willing to pay for the service. NewGen is expected to recommend the City implement an educational campaign to inform citizens of the current recycling services available, and to consider volatile markets before implementing a curb-side program.
“While there is an interest in curbside recycling by citizens, the markets are extremely volatile, due in part to China’s banning of certain recyclable imports in the past two years,” NewGen said in the report. “NewGen would recommend continuing to monitor this market and visiting with Tulsa Recycling & Transfer, i.e. Robert Perkins, and keep in touch with him regarding the markets.
“If the council elects to implement curbside recycling, it is important that the recycling market uncertainty be considered. The questionnaire indicated a significant price sensitivity by the respondents that could be a factor if market forces create the need for a rate increase after the first year.”
Bulky waste
NewGen found the current bulky waste voucher is not used by a large percentage of the residents. In fact, 896, or 43 percent, of the respondents indicated they do not use the program. Respondents appear to be interested in a curbside bulky waste collection service and are willing to pay $15 per pickup and the additional $1 per month in their solid waste bill. Reports show 1,637 residents brought bulky waste to the Osage Landfill using the voucher program last fiscal year. On the other hand, there was more interest in the neighborhood clean-up event, and people are willing to pay the additional $.50 on their monthly solid waste bill for the service, NewGen reports.
“It is notable that there was interest in the curbside collection of bulky items and the neighborhood clean-up events,” the report states. “Therefore, NewGen would recommend that the City staff discuss the level of service they would like to consider providing to its citizens and the feasibility of doing so.”
NewGen laid out several options regarding the bulky waste program:
- Maintain the status quo with the current voucher system
- Expand the voucher program to offer a voucher twice a year instead of once a year
- Consider a call-in program that occurs on a quarterly basis for a minimum payment of $15 (“It’s important to note that, based on our analysis, to fully recover the costs, the City would need to include approximately a $1 increase to the citizen’s monthly solid waste utility bill,” the report states.)
- NewGen is expected to recommend that the City maintain its current voucher program while exploring any changes to the program.
Yard waste
NewGen found that the current green yard waste collection stickers are not utilized as much as the spring and fall collection events, and that respondents showed interest in a collection program that separates the yard waste from the residential garbage collection. However, the willingness to pay $3 or $4 for the program was low.
“Given the current cost of establishing a yard waste collection and diversion program, i.e. composting, Newgen does not believe it is feasible at this time to collect yard waste separately solely for diversion purposes,” the report says. “There is no processor currently available and the potential development of such a program would be cost prohibitive.
“We would recommend the City continue the sticker program because it allows people an opportunity to get their yard waste collected and landfilled, versus being potentially illegally dumped. The City may desire to evaluate whether they would like to have a more formalized collection program that moves towards full cost recovery. The City may also wish to clarify that the sticker is for disposal, not diversion. NewGen would recommend the City continue the spring and fall yard waste collection events, i.e. free leaves and grass collection.”
Street sweeping and roadside cleanup
The report indicates residents are mostly satisfied or neutral regarding the City’s current street sweeping efforts and the roadside cleanup efforts, and that there is very little interest in paying additional fees for more frequent street sweeping and roadside cleanup efforts.
“We would recommend no changes to expand the service; however we would recommend the City better track and report the number of street cleanups, miles swept and areas that the City has completed cleaning,” the report states.
This agenda item is for informational purposes only. No action will be take on this agenda item during the meeting.
Capital Improvement Projects, G.O. Bond elections
Also during the meeting on Tuesday, staff will present information to the council about the City’s Capital Improvements Projects (CIP) program and General Obligation Bond funds. Both are approved by voters and provide funding for the City’s capital needs, which include streets, drainage improvements, water and sewer improvements, equipment, furniture, real property, facilities and some fees such as those associated with engineering, architectural and legal issues.
G.O. Bond funds utilize ad valorem property tax which are kept at 15 mills to ensure no increases in taxes are necessary to fund the City’s capital needs. These funds are typically used to finance large capital improvements and allow projects to be completed in the near term as opposed to an unspecified time when cash financing might be available, as is often the case with CIP half-cent sales tax funding.
By law, 70 percent of the project funding must be specified to voters on the ballot at the time of the election, while the remaining 30 percent are considered “discretionary” funds. While not legally required, the City’s past practice has been to identify these projects prior to the election as well. All projects specified to voters have been completed or will be completed with G.O. Bond funding.
CIP half-cent sales tax funding, on the other hand, is a “pay as you go” system that was implemented in 1990 by voters and re-affirmed in every CIP election since. The last CIP election was held in 2013. If not renewed by voters next year, the current tax will expire June 30, 2021.
The majority of all funding for capital projects — a full 50 percent — has to date been used to repair and construct streets. The next largest allocations since 1999 are facilities (17 percent), sanitary sewer system improvements (11 percent), drainage improvements (11 percent), park improvements (10 percent) and water (1 percent).
The council will not take any action on this item on Tuesday but will likely discuss the length of issuances — three, four or five years for the G.O. Bond, and five, six or seven years for CIP — as well as prioritize project categories.
If ultimately approved by the council, the next G.O. Bond and CIP elections will be held April 7, 2020.
Price Fields Complex Phase 3
In other business, the council will consider a staff recommendation to reject all bids received for phase 3 work on the Price Fields complex Renovation project. Bids for the work, which includes construction of new fields in the central portion of the complex, came in over the available funds for the project, including the lowest bid of $473,000 from CMS Willowbrook.
Funding for the project, $3.6 million, was approved by voters in the 2018 General Obligation Bond Election. From that amount, $228,400 has been used for design services and $10,000 to extend power supply to the scoreboards recently installed on existing fields constructed in phases 1 and 2 as part of the agreement with Youth Scoreboards. This leaves a remaining budget of $3,361,000, which was approved as part of the 2019-20 Fiscal Year capital budget.
According to Engineering Director Micah Siemers, the project could be awarded for more than the approved budget by utilizing funds from other projects to cover the elevated up front cost, and building components could be modified and/or items eliminated in an effort to bring the project back in budget.
“Once those items are identified and agreed upon with the contractor the contract amount would be reduced via change order,” Siemers said in a staff report on the matter. “Essentially, we would be borrowing funds from another project temporarily and as soon as a change order is approved the funds would revert back to those projects.”
He said another option is to reject all bids, value-engineer the project on the front end and then rebid the project.
“Staff would work with PDG and make some modifications to the project to bring prices down based on feedback from contractors and then rebid the project,” he said. “Due to how large the deficit is staff is recommending that the City Council reject the bids and rebid the project.”
If the council approves the recommendation, engineering staff will coordinate with contractors and PDG to value-engineer the project and target advertising the rebid by the first week in October so the project can be awarded at the Nov. 4 council meeting.