BELLE — Belle aldermen on April 6 discussed ways to provide temporary trash disposal to city residents since GFL Environmental, formerly WCA, discontinued service. The board approved a plan to temporarily order two 18-yard or one 30-yard dumpster for city residents only to use for free until a permanent solution may be found.

Belle Mayor Daryl White, Jr., called the special meeting.

“Me and Charro (Reasor, city treasurer) have called hundreds of people,” White told the board of aldermen. “Dumpster services is available, we don’t have a lot of residential services. So what I was purposing tonight — I don’t want to get too far into this and people don’t have trash. So I propose the city put in a 30-yard dumpster and let people put trash in it for a couple of weeks until we figure out what’s goin’ on.”

White said he knows people will abuse it, but it is better than trash piling up. It will cost the city about $285 for the dumpster and they pay by the ton when it is emptied.

Alderman Jeanette Struemph asked if that was weekly and White said it is per dumpster.

“I don’t know if we should put it out under the water tower or somebody had the idea the other day that if they can provide a previous bill from GFL that they have been dropped, we can let them use it.”

Not everyone in town lost service. White said he doesn’t want to open the dumpster to everyone and overflow it.

“If we open it up to people that can produce a previous bill from GFL to prove they lost service, then it might give us a leg up for a couple of weeks,” White said. “For in-town residents only.”

Alderman Barb Howarth said one of her neighbors has already switched to Swinger Sanitation.

“I talked to Swinger a couple of times, I dropped the idea but they wasn’t interested,” White said.

According to city ordinance, if the town wants to pursue a contract for city trash service from a provider, they have to send out notices two years in advance. Former mayor Steve Vogt initiated a similar plan four years ago.

“I have called people from St.Louis to Lake of the Ozarks, Moberly to Columbia,” White said. “There was just nobody. Hermann Republic was interested if we could get a hundred people to sign up and nobody will come sign up.”

City Clerk Frankie Horstman said there are more people signed up at the city for out-of-town service than in-town service.

White said Republic wouldn’t be interested unless they could be guaranteed 100 residential addresses.

Struemph said she doesn’t want to switch from Swinger and White said she doesn’t have to.

“Swinger isn’t dropping anybody,” White said. “They have taken on some businesses like the bank and dropped dumpsters and stuff. They will take on remote locations but not new clients and 200 more people because they can’t get enough help.”

Struemph said her sister-in-law doesn’t have service so she pays for a dumpster at Struemph’s house and her sister pays her for the service.

“I don’t know if I would want to add somebody else, or how they would pay, but she pays me for that service. It is a gamble,” Struemph said.

White said he shares his dumpster as well but thinks he is going to stop because he can’t lock it up.

“I might even take it from my shop and put it behind my house to regulate it more,” White said.

Alderman Adam Padgett said they could put the dumpster at the water tower or whatever location White wants.

“It will probably get abused, but trash that gets thrown away won’t be on the street,” he said. “I wouldn’t say I am ok with the abuse, but better to be abused a little bit than to be laying in somebody’s yard. We’ve got to get rid of it in that small window until we get something else in place. But how do you regulate who is using it?”

He said they will have to lock it up at night.

“My thoughts are we have to have it accessible during the day,” White said. “I know people work and stuff so they will have to make arrangements. We can’t have it open 24 hours a day and used as a dumping ground.”

Howarth suggested a sign with open hours.

“Even if it is open for four hours on Saturday where a deputy could open and close it or I could open and close it,” White said. “If not, everybody’s dumpsters in town are gonna get full real fast.”

White said he had a list of nuisance complaints dropped off to him on Thursday.

“How do I issue nuisances to a lady that has trash in her carport when there’s nobody to pick it up,” White said. “What do I tell her? To burn it?”

White said they have a deputy working seven days a week to be able to open the gate at the water tower to dump the trash.

“I ain’t saying we have to be open on weekends,” Aldermen James (Pudd) Mitchell said.

“If we wait another couple of weeks there’s gonna be a lot of trash in town,” White said. “We wait four weeks and we can’t haul it off. Do we enforce tickets if we see people burning? It’s against the law to burn trash in town. That’s why I called this meeting. To brainstorm a little bit and see what you guys think.”

Horstman said to advertise what the companies take because if they don’t then the city will be responsible for disposal.

Howarth asked how many residents were out of service and White estimated around 100 residents out of the 648 houses in town.

If the city keeps advertising about the list, White said they might get more people to sign up for trash service and get an offer from Republic in Hermann.

“If everybody agrees to do the dumpster, do we do it for a month? Or until trash service is restored?” Padgett asked.

Howarth suggested a month at a time.

“A 30-yard dumpster is a big dumpster but I feel like the town would fill it fairly quick,” White said.

“You can put more in it but you pay by the weight,” Struemph said. “We could smash it down and compact it no problem, but you still pay by the weight.”

Padgett asked if they were going to enforce that it is only for those who had trash service and lost it or if it will be everyone.

“We’re not going to have someone there watching,” White said. “But we are going to have to put it in the ad that we only want those who lost trash service throwing something away.”

White said they will put a camera on it to make sure people aren’t throwing away mattresses or tires, batteries or furniture.”

Padgett said residents may not throw trash in the dumpster that they can’t get rid of somewhere else.

“We are in a spot,” he said. “If the city decides they don’t want to mess with it, it isn’t something we have to do.”

Struemph said it will end up being the city’s problem later if they don’t help and they will need to figure out how to keep the dogs out of it.

“And it is going to get warm and that is going to smell,” she said. “I hate the eyesore down here, but it is the most watched place by police and people. That will be a disaster out there (at the water tower) taking it out by itself. Unless we could camera it out there.”

Padgett said it will be an eyesore, but they have to do something.

Struemph said it needs to be a temporary fix whatever they do.

Padgett suggested telling people the dumpster is under surveillance and putting up signs.

“I don’t care if anybody throws their trash in there as long as I can fit mine in there,” Padgett said. “They can fill it up plum full, but I want to be able to throw our trash away.”

White shared a story, availabe at 14 minutes, 45 seconds on the 49 minute recording about a previous issue he had when another person used his dumpster.

“If you guys are ok with it, I’ll order a dumpster,” White said. “Do you want to try it out here behind city hall? We can’t put it at the tracks because every truck around here will block in where you can’t see it.”

Mitchell asked about cameras and Horstman said there are cameras all around city hall. White added they had a whole set still in the box they could set up. Padgett said he was ok wherever the board wanted to set it up.

“Do you want it for everyone or just those who have lost service?” White asked.

“The right way to do it is the people who lost service,” Padgett said. “But if we are really trying to clean up the town and there’s space in the dumpster — I think it is gonna fill up though. I think it is gonna flow over. But if they are going to have a dumpster over there and we can get rid of half of these nuisances, why would we shoot ourselves in the foot?”

Mitchell said people would throw a fit if it was only offered to a few.

“They’ll say ‘That’s my tax money too,’” Mitchell said.

Padgett said as long as it is the right trash being thrown away.

“But if it gets to be we are going through one every two days, we will have to figure something out,” Padgett said.

Struemph said they are going to go through one every two to three days max. White said maybe three a week.

“They make a 30-yard, but a lot of these around here are 18 yards,” White said.

Horstman asked for clarification on price and size. White said not to quote him on the $285 per 30-yard container because he has talked to too many people.

“Swingers got some,” White said.

“The last I heard, they was on a three-week wait,” Struemph said.

White said the wait is for the smaller ones. They are going to start picking up local businesses.

White asked what GFL is doing with their dumpsters and cans. Mitchell said some people have called Swinger and asked if they could pay them to dump the dumpsters.

“If we put the dumpster by our rock pile and stuff will the cameras, watch them there,” Mitchell said.

Horstman said they would have to adjust the cameras because of distance.

“It is probably going to have a smell to it too,” White said. “What do you say we put it right behind this building?”

Struemph said it is going to smell.

“It’s not even been a week, but walk by the restaurants,” she said. “It would probably be better off away from everything.”

White said people complain about things on the empty lot. Howarth suggested the empty lot next to Belinda Branson.

“Estimate the price of the dumpster at $300 to be here,” White said. “That’s just the price to be here and then we pay per ton.”

“It could be up to $1,000 a week,” Padgett said. The board agreed.

“We could discontinue it after a week,” White said.

Mitchell suggested having the public works department smash it down when it starts to get full so they can hold off another day before it gets dumped. Struemph said it wouldn’t matter as far as price because it is by the ton.

“But they charge you a trucking fee for pick-up and drop-off,” White said. “I will call around to find the cheapest one again. It might be cheaper to have two small 18-yard dumpsters.”

Padgett said a couple of times a year they have the special trash pick up for things that the trashman won’t take. Now they need the pick-up service for the daily trash.

“I will make a motion to accept the $300 for a dumpster, plus weight, location to be determined,” Padgett said.

Struemph said a dumpster on each side of town might be beneficial. They could put it near the charcoal warehouse on Johnson Avenue.

“Some people don’t drive or have access to a car,” she added.

Residents will have to walk into the back of the 30-yard dumpsters to load them. White said they could monitor the dumpster better if they only have one.

“It will take a week to get one,” White said. “I think worst case scenario, the guy from Hermann has one, he might give us two 18-yard dumpsters for the price of one.”

Horstman asked about opening the dumpster to county residents for a fee to try and recoup some of the money the city will lose.

“Who will watch after hours?” White asked. “You’ve got people like my dad bringing it to my house, ‘put this in your dumpster for me.’”

White told the board he would call on Friday to see what they can get.

A 49 minute audio recording of the special meeting will be available on the Maries County Advocate Facebook page on Thursday for the public to listen to the board’s discussion about trash service, hiring a school resource officer/part-time officer, summer help and pay.