The Yuck factor!

Although city staff had hoped for a decision on the future of waste management in Hamilton we are into a delay. The final decision to be made at the next meeting of the Public Works Committee, February 6th to be followed by City Council for final confirmation of the new plan. Staff had hoped the decision could have been made before the end of the month so that all can be set for the rolling out of the seven year plan in April of 2013. What's the holdup? The legal department advised that since one of the bidders on this major contract had filed a complaint about the process and would not be heard until Wednesday's Audit, Finance and Administration meeting it was best for Public Works to hold off until the complaint were heard and a Special Public Works meeting could be held to make a recommendation on which proposal would be accepted.  We can tell you that staff have recommended a plan that saves the city 3.6 million dollars per year and adds three years to the life of the Glanbrook Landfill. It's Project 5 costing taxpayers 21.2 million dollars per year. What would it mean to you? The biggest feature would be the increase in containers you could put out every TWO weeks, and that's six. Blue boxes and green bin pickups would continue on a weekly basis. Several other municipalities have moved to bi-weekly pickup of trash including Ottawa which is about to implement and Halton Region where they are about to move from a six container pickup to three. In other words there are a lot of different ways to handle our waste and some of the sticking points that were appearing around the committee table today included pet feces and, well, kiddy poo. What to do with all those diapers over a two week period or where to store kitty litter during a warm spell over two weeks became topics of debate. More to come in a couple of weeks time.

On another issue a move by Ward 12 Councillor Lloyd Ferguson to bring back the ramp from Mohawk Road to the west bound 403 that disappeared during the planning of the Lincoln Alexander Expressway hit a snag. It appears that the Ministry of Transport does not intend to spend a dime on the construction of such a ramp costing anywhere from five to ten million dollars claiming it's the City's responsibility since it resolves a local traffic issue. The cost is two hundred thousand dollars for City Staff to come up with a design which is already approved and found in the 2012 budget. Councillors were shocked with the stance by the MoT with Ward 7's Scott Duvall wondering out loud if the city should even spend a nickle on design knowing it doesn't have the money to build the ramp if the Province continues its intransigence on this issue. In the end the design work will go ahead and the lobbying of the local Liberal Cabinet Minister Ted McMeekin will be ramped up. Excuse the pun. Up next another Planning session.