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(THOMAS WALLNER | THE GRAHAM LEADER) A dumpster provided by KC Dumpsters which serves as the city of Graham’s contracted solid waste provider. The company approached the city about operating its convenience station.
KC Dumpsters approached the Graham City Council with the concept of a partnership for operation of the city’s convenience station.
The city of Graham entered into a contract with KC Dumpsters to provide garbage collection services starting Monday, Sept. 1.
KC Dumpsters Owner Adam Anderle made a presentation before the city council Thursday, Nov. 6 regarding the proposal and expressing interest in entering into a public, private partnership under contract.
“I’m just trying to find ways to make this community, the county and surrounding areas a better place to accept trash and hopefully keep a lot of it off the roads and county roads,” Anderle said.
The convenience station at 1421 Ave. F is a trash drop-off station open to city residents. Each year, city residents can dump up to 6 cubic yards of general refuse for free with a city water bill.
The station also accepts brush, leaves, tree limbs and grass clippings and recycling at no charge for residents.
City Manager Eric Garretty said the benefit to the city would be a cost savings to the general fund.
“The city spends about $182,000 per year operating the convenience station. The city collects an average of $25,000 per year in fees from the convenience station for a net operating cost of $157,000 per year,” Garretty said.
The cost would move from $182,000 to $28,000 under a potential contract with KC Dumpsters which would be the cost for chipping all brush brought to the station.
The city manager said the city currently has to bring in a company to chip the brush which can be an annual cost between $30,000-40,000 per year.
There is currently one city employee that works at the station and the city manager said they could find another spot in the city for that employee.
Garretty said a potential contract with KC Dumpsters would still be subject to legal review, city council review and procurement review.
“This is a public, private partnership where a vendor could potentially profit from operating off of this property that’s leased by the city. So until I talk to the city attorney, I don’t know if we would have to go out with a formal request for proposals,” Garretty said.
Current pricing for Graham residents outside their free 6 cubic yards per year is $15 per cubic yard for general refuse, $60 per cubic yard for concrete, bricks and rocks, $8 per tire and $10-50 per truck tire, depending on size.
Non-residential pricing is $30 per cubic yard for general refuse, $120 per cubic yard for concrete, brick and rocks, $16 per tire and $20-100 per truck tire, depending on size.
Preliminary pricing presented by Anderle was $30 per cubic yard for trash, or $75 per ton, $10 per cubic year for brush, $50 per cubic yard for concrete, bricks, rocks or dirt and $10 per tire, with the price increasing depending on size.
Anderle said city residents would continue to be able to dump 6 cubic yards of general refuse per year and have free recycling.
“That’s one thing I wanted to be sure of is to not affect how it operates now for the citizens. I mean, we want them to have the same opportunity to get rid of the trash that they have now,” Anderle said.
The city receives complaints about the current rules at the convenience station about what the city will accept. Garretty said with KC Dumpsters they could take more loads that are currently being turned away.
“There’s a lot of stipulations that Graham has on it where if contractors come from out of town or things like that and do small construction jobs, they’re not allowed to dump in there. I think with this proposal, we could accept that kind of trash and really open it up to the broader, bigger picture of collecting trash inside this area,” Anderle said.
Public Works Director Randall Dawson said under the current permit the city is not allowed to accept construction material.
“The permitting process, KC Dumpsters would be solely responsible for that,” Anderle said. “We already have our own TCEQ permits for the low volume transfer station that we operate out south of town, and it would be no different than that. We would control all the permitting and do all of that.”
KC Dumpsters would provide all of the equipment in use at the convenience station and would be responsible for all utilities and upkeep of the property.
The tentative hours of operation were proposed for 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday.
The item on the city council agenda was for discussion only, with no formal action to be taken. The city council will discuss further details regarding the proposal at a later meeting.
