Also Monday, the council voted to further expand the city’s bulk trash and brush collection service — funded by an 80-cent fee increase residents have paid since July — to include pickup of couches, mattresses and other upholstered items.

Gray introduced the measure, which will allow residents to put out the items curbside for collection on the same schedule as recycling as a part of the city’s new every-other-week bulk trash collection program.

Some on the council said they thought that’s what they were getting when they approved the 80-cent increase to the solid waste fee last spring to improve the service.

“There was never any indication that upholstered items wouldn’t be included,” Larson said. “I think we need to follow through with what we approved in the budget.”

Residents have paid the higher fee since July. The Department of Public Works did not roll out the program until December because it took several months to order and receive the knuckleboom trucks and hire the additional workers who the council signed off on.