ANN ARBOR, MI – A new regional recycling authority is expected to hold its first meeting next week.

At the table will be seven Washtenaw County municipalities that have adopted articles of incorporation to become members of the Washtenaw Regional Resource Management Authority.

That includes the cities of Dexter, Saline and Ypsilanti, and the townships of Ann Arbor, Pittsfield, Scio and Ypsilanti.

Not at the table: The city of Ann Arbor.

Of eight communities that engaged in serious talks of forming a regional authority last year, Ann Arbor is the only holdout.

The city still could decide to join, but the authority would have to agree to amend its articles of incorporation to allow it, and it would need to go through the governing bodies of all seven members.

The city’s staff and Environmental Commission are recommending City Council request joining to gain the benefits of working cooperatively with other regional partners on recycling efforts.

“Collectively, we could do a lot more, be a lot more effective,” said Cresson Slotten, the city’s systems planning manager.

Council tabled a proposal to join the authority in March while the city was working on a new solid waste plan.

With a draft plan in hand last week, council members continued to express concerns and hesitations about joining the authority.

“For the smaller townships and municipalities in the county, there very well may be economies of scale and increased diversion opportunities,” said Council Member Jane Lumm, I-2nd Ward.

“But for the city of Ann Arbor, who’s obviously the dominant player by orders of magnitude in an authority, it’s not at all clear what the financial implications would be of our participating in any of the contemplated regional efforts.”

That would be dependent on cost-sharing agreements the authority has yet to develop, Lumm said, suggesting the city could consider joining at some point in the future, but not now.

“The governance structure, I think, is very problematic,” she added, arguing the voting power on the board should be “volume weighted” to give Ann Arbor more control, rather than “one member, one vote.”

The city should ask for changes to the articles of incorporation before joining, including giving Ann Arbor a proportionate vote, said Council Member Jack Eaton, D-4th Ward.

Eaton also wants labor protections to guarantee no current employee of any municipal solid waste service would be disadvantaged in wages or benefits by the city’s participation.

“Here in Ann Arbor, we like to maintain our collective bargaining rights of employees,” said Council Member Anne Bannister, D-1st Ward.

Lumm isn’t confident the city would be treated equitably if it joined, she said, arguing the county has “no qualms about sticking it to the city financially for the benefit of the balance of the county.”

“In a lot of ways, we are donors to the surrounding communities and the load is getting heavy,” added Council Member Ali Ramlawi, D-5th Ward, echoing some of Lumm’s concerns.

“I still feel like we give up a lot of certainty for a lot of uncertainty,” he said of joining the authority. “And in order to do that, it needs to be defined in a better way for us to give away that type of certainty.”

The city would have no obligation to enter into any agreements through the authority if the terms are not favorable or in line with city values, said City Administrator Howard Lazarus.

The authority’s first meeting is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Sept. 23 at the county’s Learning Resource Center, 4135 Washtenaw Ave.

Mayor Christopher Taylor said he supports joining the authority as it’s set up now and he sees no risk in it.

“We are not committing ourselves to anything except to participation in an organization that will plan regionally,” he said.

“The fact that we would have one vote on this board, to me, is immaterial, because we would have the only vote with respect to whether or not we’re going to sign on to the contract devised by this group,” Taylor said. “That is a veto that cannot be overridden.”

The authority is designed to create a regional plan and then a contract ultimately, Taylor said, acknowledging there’s uncertainty right now as to what exactly that would entail.

“The contract and that plan will be the point where we have clarity. This is just a group that will arrive at that together,” he said.

“In my view, it would be regrettable and not thinking in the longterm for us to decline to participate.”

The county updated its solid waste plan in 2017, with a goal being regional cooperation, Slotten said.

That same year, a county-hired consultant completed a waste diversion study, which examined drop-off recycling facilities and opportunities like replacing the city’s Drop-Off Station at 2950 E. Ellsworth Road.

“People are waiting for that to be replaced,” Slotten said, noting it has operated for several years as a regional facility, with about 53% of users coming from outside the city.

It was estimated in 2017 it would cost about $4.8 million to replace the facility at a new site nearby, Slotten said, noting it’s been suggested that could be done through a regional consortium.

A county-funded study completed in March 2018 more closely examined the potential for a regional body, leading to eight jurisdictions participating in authority-formation committee meetings last year.

“The study’s findings said that, yes, there is advantage, there is opportunity here, there is interest in regional collaboration around solid waste materials management and recycling,” Slotten said, noting the study also looked at reopening the city’s shuttered recycling plant through a regional approach.

Joining the new authority entails paying a $5,000 first-year membership fee. Under state law, only municipalities can be voting members, though other institutions like the University of Michigan and Ann Arbor Public Schools could participate as customers, receive services and be part of discussions and programs, Slotten said.

As far as the authority’s initial efforts, he said, there’s been talk of doing more education and outreach to improve quality and quantity of recyclables, as well as more data tracking in terms of how member communities are recycling, working on attracting a recycling processor to come invest in a facility to accept the region’s recyclables.

It makes much more sense for the city to collaborate with UM than to “hitch its wagon to Dexter or to Saline,” Lumm argued.

Rather than a regional authority, she’d rather have the city focus specifically on the Drop-Off Station for now, she said.

The city is finalizing its own solid waste plan and there’s a sense of urgency and immediacy to get through the process, Lazarus said. The city has trash and recycling contracts expiring next June.

“Several key decisions have to be made both now and as we head into the budget process concerning partnering, contracting, equipment replacement and procurement,” Lazarus said.

“We’re really looking at nine months to be prepared to move onto the next phase of how we manage solid waste within the community.”

The city’s draft solid waste plan recommends having city crews take over residential curbside recycling collection, work that’s being performed by nonprofit Recycle Ann Arbor.