Where St. Paul City Council candidates stand on creating a municipal garbage pickup service - MinnPost

Where St. Paul City Council candidates stand on creating a municipal garbage pickup service | MinnPost

Five years ago St. Paul launched a huge debate over how trash gets collected from the city’s homes. And in some important ways that debate continues on the City Council to this day.

Quick backstory: In 2018, city officials ended a years-old system that left it up to each homeowner to hire their own garbage hauler. Instead, the city would assign a territory to every hauler serving St. Paul and standardize the rates everyone paid. A year later, voters decisively approved a referendum locking in this new arrangement.

But last year, St. Paul leaders floated an idea: Instead of relying on five private companies, what if the city started picking up some of the trash itself?

In February, city officials formally approved a plan that called for renegotiating the garbage contract to add a “municipal collection” service into the current mix of hauling companies. The idea was the city would hire crews and buy trucks that would serve a relatively small portion of the city – at least at first.

“I would support a fully municipal trash collection service and a transition to get there in the next few years,” said Mitra Jalali, the current Ward 4 council member, in her answer to MinnPost’s candidate survey. She said the city-organized system was “more equitable,” but the system “could work even better if it was our own city employees and vehicles out there.”

- Related: Read MinnPost’s guide to where Minneapolis & St. Paul City Council candidates stand on hot topics

Officials said the creation of a municipal collection option would give the city new leverage over the hauling companies after numerous resident complaints about missed pickups in the previous year (some of which were weather-related).

The hauling companies balked at this idea, seeing a threat to their business. Late last month, the St. Paul City Council opted to extend the current garbage contract – an extension that puts off the opportunity for the city to start offering its own collection service for another year-and-a-half. But in a statement, the city’s Public Works Department said it would continue to explore the idea of establishing a municipal collection option.

This is where St. Paul’s trash wars stand now – and with the current trash contract due to expire in spring 2025, the decision about whether to adopt a municipal collection option will fall to the next City Council.

“St. Paul could create a municipal trash collection service that would provide positive outcomes for the community, better quality jobs and equipment for workers, and a better allocation of resources,” wrote Cheniqua Johnson, a candidate for the open Ward 7 seat, in her response to MinnPost.

But opinions are divided.

“While the current system is inadequate, having the city run it would only make it worse,” wrote Dino Guerin, another candidate for the open Ward 7 seat. Jalali’s opponent in Ward 4, Robert Bushard, also opposes the municipal collection option.

And several other candidates, while open to exploring municipal collection, also worry about the city taking on too much responsibility for a service that private haulers already provide.

“I do support this effort,” wrote Pa Der Vang, another Ward 7 candidate. “However, I do not think that St. Paul should ban private haulers from doing business in St. Paul. I would like residents to choose between a private hauler, or the city service, in order to prevent a monopoly.”

Below, we’ve summarized where candidates who responded to MinnPost’s candidate survey stand on the municipal trash collection question.

To see where this year’s City Council candidates in both St. Paul and Minneapolis stand on a wide range of hot topics, check out MinnPost’s “Who’s running?” guide.

Should St. Paul create a municipal trash collection service, and if so, how should that affect the city’s relationship with private haulers?

Ward 1

- Anika Bowie: Yes
- Yan Chen: “Not yet”
- James Lo: No
- Omar Syed: Yes
- Suz Woehrle: Maybe, depending on the cost and details — but she worries about a hasty, chaotic rollout
- Jeff Zeitler: No

Ward 2

- Peter K. Butler: No
- Bill Hosko: No opinion
- Rebecca Noecker (incumbent): Yes – though private haulers should continue to provide most pickup service

Ward 3

- Troy Barksdale: No
- Patty Hartmann: No
- Saura Jost: Yes
- Isaac Russell: Yes, with a pilot project in a small geographic area

Ward 4

- Robert Bushard: No
- Mitra Jalali (incumbent): Yes

Ward 5

- David Greenwood-Sanchez: Yes, supports “exploring” a system in which private and public haulers co-exist
- Hwa Jeong Kim: Yes
- Pam Tollefson: No

Ward 6

- Nelsie Yang (incumbent): Yes

Ward 7

- Dino Guerin: No
- Chenqiua Johnson: Yes
- Foua-Choua Khang: No
- Pa Der Vang: Yes, though city shouldn’t ban private haulers