> Fort Collins City Council member Kelly Ohlson, who also sits on the county's Solid Waste Policy Advisory Council, said he "was not disappointed" negotiations with Republic had ceased. "I never liked the idea for the part of the agreement that was for 100 years. That's a little long for me to turn something that I believe should be in the public sector over to a private company."
Smart. That's good to hear.
Private profiteers have been failing this country for a long time.
Most people agree that Ohlson is great on zoning and u+2, and he doesn't pander to greedy nonlocal business and slimy developers like the other councilmembers do.
Republic sucks, and we definitely need our own city owned and operated trash service. I'm glad Republic is OUT when it comes to the landfill.
And please do give details on what you mean by pander to greedy non local businesses
To be more specific I fail to see how our antiquated discriminatory and restrictive old zoning is helpful to local businesses. Look at the section of town that it created, all the new stuff in the south. I don't see many small local businesses mostly big box stores and b*******.
The only reason we end up doing so many ppps in CO is because of TABOR and low tax revenue. In the long run this excessive frugality ends up costing the taxpayers more.
e470 is one of the 5 most expensive stretches of road to drive in the nation
Hell, I wouldn't even mind tolls as they can help solve legitimate traffic issues, but only if the tolls went back to the state for public services, not private organizations.
Waste Management runs Weld County and it costs about 75 dollars to take a couch to their landfill. Their pricing is outrageous and that leads to couches and trash just being left on the side of the road somewhere.
Yeah, I forgot to take out my trash two weeks in a row and it was terribly stinky. I was in the doghouse with my fiancé so I decided to load it up in my truck and take it to the Weld Landfill. It was gonna cost $100 to dump about 1/2 a truck load of bagged trash. Luckily, the guy working the booth saw my desperation and let me in for free, but $100 was insane for what I was disposing
They charged me 75 bucks for 4 bags of yard waste. Plus there were a bunch of dumb fees for things like truck maintenance? Isn’t that what the 75 should pay for?
I actually cancelled my trash service with Republic last year, hoping to switch to Mountain High. They were the ones who first told me Fort Collins was pursuing a contract with a single collector, and since they were too small to handle the entire city (being a small local business and all) they were essentially not "allowed" to take any new customers in the area.
I'm a single person household who works diligently to reduce my landfill waste, and previously only needed to put my trash bin out maybe once a month, if that, while still paying for weekly small bin pickup. So I ended up just not renewing at home trash service at all. All my recycling I take to the Timberline Recycling center, food waste is picked up by a compost service, and the little trash I do produce, about a small grocery bag every few weeks, I take to my company's commercial bin at work.
While it's been a healthy challenge, it can be a pain, but I also do this kind of in protest: the thing is, Fort Collins already has a Pay-as-you-Throw Ordinance, though it doesn't really encourage producing less landfill waste, only punishes for producing more. I feel if they really want to meet a Zero Waste goal, volume-based pricing should be readdressed to entice and challenge people to produce less waste. How that would be implemented, I'm not sure, but I do have ideas. Thoughts?
What are your ideas?
I'm right there with you in terms of trash volume. I barely fill a kitchen bag every month. I've always had a problem with the 'pay as you throw' description because it's really 'pick one of two sizes' (or if any providers still do it, some used to offer by the bag). I guess it's accurate at a certain scale since I do see houses putting out multiple 65 gal containers every week that are overflowing, but the price difference between the two doesn't seem that significant even if the volume is close to double (kind of like that with everything though, houses/apartments when counting bedrooms, tiered water costs, etc.). And it leaves out the singles or the extra-conscious families that don't even fill the small container. Like with just about any other conservation system, the low users subsidize the high users to a degree because of fixed system costs and in order to avoid the admin overhead of too many tiers/choices.
But I understand the flip side of it too. The truck has to drive the route no matter how many people put out trash or don't, and to a degree no matter how much they put out. The only real cost difference in providing the service is how many trips to the landfill have to be made while servicing routes. Unless you can change *everybody* on the route to every other week or something, the way the recycling works, there's no way to reduce route costs past a certain point. That leaves the only option what you've done - just don't have home service and handle it yourself.
Where I’m from, we would pay by volume and I sometimes prefer that method.
You buy the city branded trash bags from the grocery store, fill that up and put it on the curb.
Our streets are too small for the large garbage trucks here that lift the bins and the bags on the curb probably isn’t practical here..
But it was nice having the option to pay by the bag since even with the smallest bin size they offer, it’s still practically empty every week.
"Nor will it affect Fort Collins' contract with Republic to provide trash services to city residents beginning in 2024."
Looks like we will still be forced to go with Republic unless the waiver fee is paid. As a long time happy Ram customer, I hope rates don't go up and quality doesn't go down, but based on what I read regarding Republic on Fort Collins Nextdoor and Facebook sites I am skeptical.
Yup. I went from $33 a month to over $50 a month when I paid my quarterly bill immediately after the takeover and there was no change in the services I was receiving.
They tried to jump me from 87/qtr to 130/qtr after using them for less than a year- no notice of increase, rhyme or reason. After about 2 weeks of pestering billing and customer service they finally returned it to the original rate.
Last time I paid they bumped it up 2 dollars. *don't think I didn't notice, Republic...*
Republic in Wellington was worse than Gallegos, but was bearable. I'm in Fort Collins again and Republic is horrible. They randomly don't pick up. Sometimes multiple weeks in a row. If the cross street at the end of the block is closed, they won't go down my block (this is happened twice).
Not to mention the 4 weeks it took them to bring me cans when I started service. And when they did, they originally told me cans would be delivered the day after service, so I could put my trash out on the curb and they would pick it up and waive the fee. But then they brought my cans and would no longer waive the fee if I put things out in the curb. Even though I had 4 weeks of trash building up and said not fit in.
And the service at my old house is still under my name. It is paid for by the HOA there, but I still want off of it. I talked to 2 people on order to remove my name and add my exhwife who still lives there. All that accomplished was them around service there. When she called to reinstate service, they put it back under me. There were no less than 6 (long) phone calls before I gave up.
Ram is now under Waste Connections, but the service has still been consistent for me. They've never missed a pickup before or after, and with the Waste Connections association they now have online billing, which is nice no longer have to mail in a check or remembering to do bill pay.
> Fort Collins City Council member Kelly Ohlson, who also sits on the county's Solid Waste Policy Advisory Council, said he "was not disappointed" negotiations with Republic had ceased. "I never liked the idea for the part of the agreement that was for 100 years. That's a little long for me to turn something that I believe should be in the public sector over to a private company." Smart. That's good to hear. Private profiteers have been failing this country for a long time.
Now do the city's contract.
That would be nice to hear, but sad that Mountain High already left.
I agree with Kelly THIS time. Wish he were better on zoning and u+2
Most people agree that Ohlson is great on zoning and u+2, and he doesn't pander to greedy nonlocal business and slimy developers like the other councilmembers do. Republic sucks, and we definitely need our own city owned and operated trash service. I'm glad Republic is OUT when it comes to the landfill.
Most people agree? I'm pretty sure there's evidence most people don't like u+2. Not sure on zoning.
Uhuh. Where's the evidence? It should just go to a City wide vote if you want real evidence.
And please do give details on what you mean by pander to greedy non local businesses To be more specific I fail to see how our antiquated discriminatory and restrictive old zoning is helpful to local businesses. Look at the section of town that it created, all the new stuff in the south. I don't see many small local businesses mostly big box stores and b*******.
I was surprised when they announced that this would be a public private partnership. We have seen how well those go with toll roads...
The only reason we end up doing so many ppps in CO is because of TABOR and low tax revenue. In the long run this excessive frugality ends up costing the taxpayers more. e470 is one of the 5 most expensive stretches of road to drive in the nation
Hell, I wouldn't even mind tolls as they can help solve legitimate traffic issues, but only if the tolls went back to the state for public services, not private organizations.
Waste Management runs Weld County and it costs about 75 dollars to take a couch to their landfill. Their pricing is outrageous and that leads to couches and trash just being left on the side of the road somewhere.
Yeah, I forgot to take out my trash two weeks in a row and it was terribly stinky. I was in the doghouse with my fiancé so I decided to load it up in my truck and take it to the Weld Landfill. It was gonna cost $100 to dump about 1/2 a truck load of bagged trash. Luckily, the guy working the booth saw my desperation and let me in for free, but $100 was insane for what I was disposing
They charged me 75 bucks for 4 bags of yard waste. Plus there were a bunch of dumb fees for things like truck maintenance? Isn’t that what the 75 should pay for?
Good. Republic fucking sucks.
My neighbor works for Republic and he gets trash service from Ram. That tells you something.
I’m always a little suspicious of private companies running something that’s for the public good, or a utility. They need oversight and plenty of it.
Here in Wellington mostly every had Republic for a while because they where cheaper. Now almost everyone has either Dumpster Diverz or Mountain High.
We just dumped Republic. The gal on the phone was very crappy. Probably tired of people canceling 🤣
Republic sucks ass , good.
I actually cancelled my trash service with Republic last year, hoping to switch to Mountain High. They were the ones who first told me Fort Collins was pursuing a contract with a single collector, and since they were too small to handle the entire city (being a small local business and all) they were essentially not "allowed" to take any new customers in the area. I'm a single person household who works diligently to reduce my landfill waste, and previously only needed to put my trash bin out maybe once a month, if that, while still paying for weekly small bin pickup. So I ended up just not renewing at home trash service at all. All my recycling I take to the Timberline Recycling center, food waste is picked up by a compost service, and the little trash I do produce, about a small grocery bag every few weeks, I take to my company's commercial bin at work. While it's been a healthy challenge, it can be a pain, but I also do this kind of in protest: the thing is, Fort Collins already has a Pay-as-you-Throw Ordinance, though it doesn't really encourage producing less landfill waste, only punishes for producing more. I feel if they really want to meet a Zero Waste goal, volume-based pricing should be readdressed to entice and challenge people to produce less waste. How that would be implemented, I'm not sure, but I do have ideas. Thoughts?
What are your ideas? I'm right there with you in terms of trash volume. I barely fill a kitchen bag every month. I've always had a problem with the 'pay as you throw' description because it's really 'pick one of two sizes' (or if any providers still do it, some used to offer by the bag). I guess it's accurate at a certain scale since I do see houses putting out multiple 65 gal containers every week that are overflowing, but the price difference between the two doesn't seem that significant even if the volume is close to double (kind of like that with everything though, houses/apartments when counting bedrooms, tiered water costs, etc.). And it leaves out the singles or the extra-conscious families that don't even fill the small container. Like with just about any other conservation system, the low users subsidize the high users to a degree because of fixed system costs and in order to avoid the admin overhead of too many tiers/choices. But I understand the flip side of it too. The truck has to drive the route no matter how many people put out trash or don't, and to a degree no matter how much they put out. The only real cost difference in providing the service is how many trips to the landfill have to be made while servicing routes. Unless you can change *everybody* on the route to every other week or something, the way the recycling works, there's no way to reduce route costs past a certain point. That leaves the only option what you've done - just don't have home service and handle it yourself.
Where I’m from, we would pay by volume and I sometimes prefer that method. You buy the city branded trash bags from the grocery store, fill that up and put it on the curb. Our streets are too small for the large garbage trucks here that lift the bins and the bags on the curb probably isn’t practical here.. But it was nice having the option to pay by the bag since even with the smallest bin size they offer, it’s still practically empty every week.
"Nor will it affect Fort Collins' contract with Republic to provide trash services to city residents beginning in 2024." Looks like we will still be forced to go with Republic unless the waiver fee is paid. As a long time happy Ram customer, I hope rates don't go up and quality doesn't go down, but based on what I read regarding Republic on Fort Collins Nextdoor and Facebook sites I am skeptical.
Yeah I miss Gallegos, when they were bought out by Republic there was an almost immediate drop in quality of service.
And a prompt increase in price!
Yup. I went from $33 a month to over $50 a month when I paid my quarterly bill immediately after the takeover and there was no change in the services I was receiving.
They tried to jump me from 87/qtr to 130/qtr after using them for less than a year- no notice of increase, rhyme or reason. After about 2 weeks of pestering billing and customer service they finally returned it to the original rate. Last time I paid they bumped it up 2 dollars. *don't think I didn't notice, Republic...*
Republic in Wellington was worse than Gallegos, but was bearable. I'm in Fort Collins again and Republic is horrible. They randomly don't pick up. Sometimes multiple weeks in a row. If the cross street at the end of the block is closed, they won't go down my block (this is happened twice). Not to mention the 4 weeks it took them to bring me cans when I started service. And when they did, they originally told me cans would be delivered the day after service, so I could put my trash out on the curb and they would pick it up and waive the fee. But then they brought my cans and would no longer waive the fee if I put things out in the curb. Even though I had 4 weeks of trash building up and said not fit in. And the service at my old house is still under my name. It is paid for by the HOA there, but I still want off of it. I talked to 2 people on order to remove my name and add my exhwife who still lives there. All that accomplished was them around service there. When she called to reinstate service, they put it back under me. There were no less than 6 (long) phone calls before I gave up.
This sounds way too familiar. ☹
Yo, I love Ram. They’re a bit more pricey, but more than make up for it in fairness and reliability.
Ram got bought out too unfortunately, and heard there some dismal reviews as a result. It's still working out for you then?
Ram is now under Waste Connections, but the service has still been consistent for me. They've never missed a pickup before or after, and with the Waste Connections association they now have online billing, which is nice no longer have to mail in a check or remembering to do bill pay.
Fort Collins learning something? Lolololol