La Salle council weighs garbage collection future after continued complaints from residents

Garbage pickup sparked discussion Monday at La Salle’s City Council meeting.

Alderman Diz Demes received a text message from a La Salle resident saying their garbage was not picked up by Republic, the city’s contracted waste hauler.

Many aldermen mentioned they have received complaints from residents regarding garbage not picked up or damaged cans.

“I can understand when we have all these complaints come in, with all of the work being done I can see where they are a little delinquent,” said Alderman Boo Herndon. “There’s sometimes where they just miss a whole block and they make no attempt to answer a call.”

Mayor Jeff Grove reminded those in attendance Republic is a contractor for the city and is not the city’s staff.

“Republic is on notice that we expect better service and last week with the holiday and everything being a day off was really ridiculous,” Grove said.

Demes mentioned while bringing up past complaints, some excuses they have received have included the route having a new driver or some of the company’s employees lack of training.

Grove also mentioned the decision to contract with Republic for garbage pickup was done in order to give the best price to the city’s residents.

Some residents have brought up a city-run garbage collection, according to Herndon, but when the city entered into a contract with Republic aldermen believed the option was the best in terms of cost to residents.

Grove said when the contract is up in the next couple years, the city will have the ability to reassess and decide what route it would like to move forward with.

“I think when our contract is up in 2023, I think no matter what waste service we go to we will be required to get the totes, that’s kind of where everyone is going with,” Grove said.

“We are just trying to work and communicate and I told the officials from Republic ‘Let’s try to do our best the last year and a half of this contract,’ let’s get through it and then we’ll see where the pieces fall.”

Demes also mentioned toward the end of the discussion garbage collection is the biggest complaint he hears from residents in the city of La Salle.

Whether La Salle continues to utilize Republic or decides on an alternate method is yet to be decided, but either way city officials said Monday they are aware of the issues and continue to address them with Republic.