By Roger Sims, rsims@linncountyjournal.com
LA CYGNE – On Tuesday, Jan. 6, the Linn County Commission took the step of voting to pull the county-owned trash compactor out of Pleasanton unless city officials there agreed to sign a new contract that would force the city to become a co-licensee of the compactor station with the county.
In making the motion to give Pleasanton an ultimatum in return for that city’s ultimatum to the county, Commission Chair Danny McCullough noted that La Cygne had not yet signed its contract either.
So why wasn’t La Cygne given a deadline as well?
At the La Cygne City Council’s Dec. 4 meeting, county Public Works Administrator Shaun West met with city officials to discuss the city’s contract. All of the cities in the county have been operating trash compactors under original contracts dating back to the 1970s, and many of the changes that have taken place have done so without benefit of a formal document.
A new contract would make the county and city partners in the license for what the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) see as a transfer station. As part of that discussion, several questions came up including the responsibility of maintaining the machinery, however, the city’s main concerns included which entity would assume liability if someone dumped something deemed toxic into the compactor.
In addition to the liability and insurance question, La Cygne officials were concerned that, as more city residents were taking advantage of curbside trash pickup offered by the city, La Cygne taxpayers were taking on a tax burden by paying for a compactor site operator when most of the people who used the compactor lived outside city limits.
After West left the meeting, discussion among members of the council indicated that city officials were not ready to sign a contract with the county until some of those concerns were addressed.
However, after the meeting La Cygne City Clerk Jodi Wade contacted the staff at KDHE and asked questions about what the county had proposed. Wade said the KDHE official indicated that there could only be one entity that would hold the license for the site – either La Cygne or Linn County.
That, it turns out, conflicted with information West received from another KDHE staff member.
Wade said the person she spoke with indicated that if the city applied for the license, it would be solely responsible for assuming the liability risk, insuring the operation, and paying tonnage fees to the state.
West was not available for comment, however, Wade said that the issue was being discussed among KDHE officials and a resolution to the difference in information would be resolved by the end of January.
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