Most economic talk about the annexation of Kingsgate, Finn Hill and Juanita residents is centered on how much will it cost current Kirkland residents.
But when it comes to garbage collection, the addition of annexation residents may save current Kirkland residents money. For customer in the annexation area already receiving service, the rates will decrease.
“It is an economy of scale,” said John MacGillivray of the Kirkland Public Works Department.
The addition of 34,000 people to the city was one of the factors that allowed Kirkland to negotiate an otherwise lower rate with Waste Management. The Kirkland City Council will consider customer rates this fall.
“The negotiations went very well. They were not adversarial,” said MacGillivray. “Both sides were motivated to get it done. We were really looking to keep what we had and just add services because it is a good contract.”
The council, during its March 15 meeting, unanimously approved the seven-year contract with Waste Management, Inc. (WMI) for the collection of garbage, recyclable items and compostable materials beginning on July 1. The contract provides for services to residential, multi-family and commercial properties in current city limits, along with residents that will be annexed to the city on June 1.
Under the new contract, the city is projecting a 4.4-7.4 percent rate increase for current Kirkland residents.
“4.4 percent of that is pretty firm,” said MacGillivray. “The other 0-3 percent depends on how fast annexation area residents downsize.”
The 4.4 percent is directly attributed to the King County tipping fee increase, a CPI increase to Waste Management and the addition of solid waste staffing, said MacGillivray.
Not all annexation area residents subscribe to garbage pick up and only 60 percent subscribe to yard-waste pickup. After the annexation and new contract with Waste Management goes into effect, all annexation residents will receive yard, recycle and garbage services once a week.
Allied Waste, which currently serves the annexation area, only provides yard and recycle pickup once every other week.
Fifty-six percent of annexation residents currently have the larger bins for their needs and with increased services the need for those larger bins will decrease. But the addition of residents who don’t currently receive services, and some who will opt out of reducing the size of the bins, will directly impact the 4.4-7.4 percent increase that would have gone into effect for Kirkland residents without the annexation.
Currently 42 percent of Kirkland residents have the larger bins compared to the 56 percent in the annexation area.
“It just depends on how close the annexation area gets to that 42 percent,” said MacGillivray.
For those already subscribing to garbage service in the annexation area with Allied Waste, the news is good.
“For the typical customer the rates will go down (in the annexation area),” said MacGillivray.
The city’s Utility Billing Division will assume the billing of annexation area customers.
But for those who opt for personally taking their garbage to the transfer station, they will have a new service and bill every month. It is not clear how the change will effect some apartment complexes that contract with other companies.
There are other changes to services as well, such as the limited restoration of weekly garbage collection at 22 city neighborhood parks.
“We knew that people were upset about that so it is nice to be able to restore that,” said MacGillivray.
The contract also calls for a later morning start time of 7 a.m. in single- and multi-family areas, collection of compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) in WMI-provided sealable bags and curbside collection of bundled plastic grocery bags.
Other service improvements include Christmas tree collection in the first two weeks of January, installation of solar-powered garbage compactors in the Central Business District, replacement of diesel vehicles with compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles by July 31, 2012, and separate colored multi-family and commercial (blue) recycling dumpsters to avoid confusion, thus reducing recycling contamination rates.
The new contract provides that if WMI misses service for two or more consecutive weeks due to inclement weather, WMI will deploy garbage and recycling trucks in affected service day area(s) where customers can drop off garbage and recyclables at no charge.
