The City continues to move closer to the long-awaited single-hauler trash disposal system.  The current focus is on devising a semantic scheme that avoids using the term “single-hauler”.  Some of the ideas to implement a “contract waste collection” system without using the phrase single-hauler include dividing the City into different zones.  

In this way the City could contract with one hauler for each area thus ensuring a monopoly at the local/zone level while still being able to claim there is more than one hauler in the city as a whole. Of course, the existence of a second hauler in another part of the city would not actually help homeowners who can only physically use the hauler who was awarded their area.

Another debate was around the issue of competition.  While in a contract system the individual would lose their choice the regulation proponents argued the city government retains the right to chose among multiple options. The issue of choice thus boils down to the question of WHO gets to select your trash hauler – You OR the government?

The issue is currently on hold.  The City will probably wait until after the mayoral race in November to avoid the issue affecting the voting.  It will probably go into effect the beginning of 2020.  One of ideas mentioned was to prohibit companies who have made campaign contributions to mayoral candidates (Waste Management donated $1,000 to Adam Paul) from bidding for contracts.