The St. Paul City Council will spend the next week mulling over the latest proposal for organized residential trash collection, which has received mixed reaction from residents and haulers.

Following a heavily attended public hearing, the council chose Wednesday to hold off on voting on whether to enter into final negotiations for a five-year or seven-year contract with the city’s 15 private haulers, a proposal hammered out across nearly 11 months of difficult negotiations.

The hearing drew 23 speakers in opposition and 18 in support. A council vote likely will take place July 26.

The proposal — which has yet to be finalized — would charge all St. Paul homeowners rates of $21 to $32 per month, depending upon barrel size, on top of an annual administrative fee of $52 that has drawn many questions. Residents may not opt out of trash service.

City officials say the plan would save the typical homeowner $35 to $52 a year off their existing trash bills, but several residents said they pay far less than that or share services with neighbors, which would no longer save them money.

“The thing that is … missing from this agreement is the shared-services option,” said Council Member Amy Brendmoen.

“To those who only create a very small amount of trash, to me that’s probably the biggest issue that we have to keep grappling with,” said Council President Russ Stark.

But the negative environmental impact of having multiple haulers per day service a single alley is undeniable, Stark added. “A large majority of my constituents that I have heard from want to see this happen,” he said.

Some residents said for both aesthetic and environmental reasons, they look forward to seeing one garbage truck serve their alley, instead of as many as 10 or 11 different haulers. “It is the absolutely most inefficient system there is,” said Debbie Prokopf, a resident of South Como.

Proponents said the proposal — which covers the collection of three bulk items such as refrigerators and televisions per year at no extra charge — could cut down on illegal dumping, an eyesore and safety hazard.

“Once a month at least, I am physically removing mattresses, chairs, bags of trash,” said Patricia Ohmans, director of the Frogtown Green program, which advocates for green spaces in the Thomas-Dale neighborhood.

Highland Park resident Andrew Krchik said he represented 17 neighbors opposed to the plan, including seven who share carts, some of them seniors. “This is going to be a snafu,” he said.

Hamline-Midway resident Stephanie Digby said she sells online any bulk items she doesn’t need, and the proposal effectively asks her to pay higher rates to subsidize large item collection for homeowners who do not.

“Why should I support people who are wasteful?” Digby said. “Why should I pay to support people who are environmentally irresponsible?”

In an interview, Patrick Connolly, who is part of a four-unit condo association that shares three carts, questioned why the city needs such a large administrative fee to buy new carts when most residences already have their own.

“It’s $52 more per unit for the administrative fee, plus our (monthly rates) go up 25 percent,” said Connolly, who works for a public affairs group that has advocated against organized trash collection on behalf of the larger haulers.

Council Member Dan Bostrom noted that monthly rates are at least $15 lower in Maplewood, which began coordinated trash collection in 2012. Republic services the entire city, charging homeowners $6.61 to $13.07 per month after taxes and fees. There is no annual administrative fee, though bulk items cost extra. The Maplewood contract does not mandate a labor peace agreement.

“Now I’ve got a real problem here,” said Bostrom, who said he was otherwise not opposed to the general goal of a unified system. “We do have more work to do on this.”

Chris Swanson, Maplewood’s environmental and city code specialist, responded to a reporter’s inquiry by noting, however, that all the single-family homes in the suburb of just over 40,000 residents can be serviced with three trucks.

“St. Paul is a larger city with significantly more collection challenges than Maplewood,” said Swanson, in an email. “Just the act of picking up in alleys adds time and costs to the route, not even mentioning the number of winding old neighborhood streets or homes that cannot be collected in the alley and would take a separate pickup.”