Organized trash collection is coming to the city of St. Paul, but it may not roll out until mid-2018 or even mid-2019.

The St. Paul City Council last year agreed to abandon the city’s longstanding piecemeal, open-market trash hauling system, which since the 1970s has left homeowners to contract with private haulers themselves.

The new goal is to organize trash collection on a citywide basis.

A team of city officials remain in negotiation with a coalition of 15 licensed residential trash haulers over a series of 20 general contract goals, such as having only one hauler service residences on any given block, and providing uniform rates throughout the city.

Organizing trash collection could take until mid-2018, if not mid-2019. pic.twitter.com/x0Efd2vNdc — FredMelo, Reporter (@FrederickMelo) February 15, 2017

In an update to the city council on Wednesday, Environmental Policy Director Anne Hunt and Kris Hageman, Recycling and Solid Waste Program Manager with St. Paul Public Works, said the haulers have agreed in principle to 17 of those goals, but three sticking points remain.

Haulers submitted general contract proposals in November and again in January, and they’ll be asked this week to submit a third proposal that addresses the unresolved issues.

3 outstanding issues: labor peace agreement, should city handle billing?, 1 contract or 1 with each hauler? pic.twitter.com/h3MJ1LyuGo — FredMelo, Reporter (@FrederickMelo) February 15, 2017

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St. Paul City Council agrees on no levy increase Among them, the city has asked the haulers to sign a labor peace agreement that would allow workers to unionize and bargain for livable wages if they so choose.

“They are agreeing to the living wage piece,” Hunt said. But the haulers have resisted signing the labor peace agreement.

The city has also asked for a single contract with a single legal entity — a consortium composed of the 15 haulers — rather than maintain 15 separate contracts, but the haulers have resisted that, as well.

Additional questions include whether the city or the consortium should manage billing and customer service related to billing.

“The price that we received for the billing was very high,” Hunt said. “The city is examining what the cost would be for us to do the billing. We want a competitive price … It looked like it was maybe double what the industry standard would be.”

Hunt said she expects to meet with the city council again in a policy work session on April 5 to discuss details after receiving the consortium’s third and final proposal. On April 12, the city council will likely vote on whether to move forward with the consortium or break off talks and bid the program through a formal request for proposals.

If the city sticks with the consortium, implementation and public outreach would take a year, so full roll-out would probably not happen until the spring of 2018. If the city puts organized trash hauling out to bid, the roll-out would likely be delayed to spring of 2019. Hunt said the city is not interested in a winter roll-out.

Council Member Amy Brendmoen asked Hunt and Hageman if the negotiations have included “bulkies,” or the collection of bulk objects such as mattresses, appliances and tires to cut down on illegal dumping.

Hunt said the city’s negotiating team has been “unequivocal” in asking that an option for bulk trash removal be included as part of the contract, and the team has brought up the issue several times. The negotiating team has met with the consortium nine times to date.

In an interview, trash hauler Jim Berquist of Ken Berquist and Son Disposal said he worries for the future of his family-run business, which employs 11, including his two sons.

“The price that they want us to do it for is probably going to be the biggest issue,” he said.

He said the majority of his company’s clients are in St. Paul and losing the account through an open bidding process would shutter the shop, which his father founded nearly a century ago.

“The part that scares me is if that (request for proposals) happens my family is out of business,” he said. “We’ve owned it since 1930. I was hoping to turn this over to my son and daughter-in-law.”

Berquist pointed to the recent roll-out of citywide alleyway recycling as evidence of what could happen if the process is rushed or poorly managed.

“That’s been a total disaster since that started,” he said. “We’ve been telling the city all along, you’re not going to get this done as quick as you wanted. You are talking about people’s livelihoods — 90 percent of my work in St. Paul. If that goes, there goes the family business.”