Hoover council buys garbage truck from Alabaster to help with pickups

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The Hoover City Council on Monday night agreed to pay $70,000 to buy a used garbage truck from the city of Alabaster to help with missed garbage pickups by Amwaste in Hoover.

City leaders say they are perplexed with how Amwaste continues to have so many problems picking up garbage in Hoover. Hoover residents have reported more than 2,600 missed pickups since Amwaste changed routes and pickup days on March 25, City Administrator Ken Grimes told the council.

Those changes were designed to make service more efficient, but so far it is not, he said.

“This is a logistical contractor that should have this figured out by now,” Grimes said. “This is a route management issue. … Running a consistent route to pick up trash should not be this hard.”

Amwaste is contracted to serve 28,000 households twice a week, and the last three weeks has had more than 400 missed pickups per week, City Clerk Wendy Dickerson said. Grimes said while that’s a small fraction of the total pickups, it’s still unacceptable, and it doesn’t make sense, especially considering that many of the missed pickups are happening to the same people repeatedly.

The city has had face-to-face meetings with Amwaste leaders, but those also are not producing results, Grimes said.

Hoover contracts with Amwaste through the Cahaba Solid Waste Disposal Authority, which is a consortium of governments that banded together to get a better rate and save money. Other cities that have contracted with the authority are reporting problems, too, but not to the degree that Hoover is experiencing, Grimes said.

Amwaste believes the problem is with specific drivers that have not been able to follow the right routes consistently and certain route managers, he said. The number of missed pickups has declined from a peak of 700 missed pickups in one week, but Amwaste has had sufficient time to address the matter, he said.

The city’s contract with the Cahaba Solid Waste Disposal Authority is for 10 years, and the city is just 2 ½ years into it, Grimes said. There is an exit clause, but the big question is who would handle garbage pickup if the city got out of its contract, he said. “We’re thinking it through and trying to work with them, but you can’t push a wet rope.”

In the meantime, the extra truck purchased Monday night should help the city triage problem areas, Grimes said. The 2018 Freightliner is a full-size garbage truck that can accommodate 800 to 900 pickups, he said.

The city has been using a smaller truck that was purchased several years back that can only handle 80 to 90 pickups, so this truck is a much-needed tool in the toolbelt, he said.

Alabaster, which runs its own garbage pickup service, has had this truck for five years and was using it as backup until it let Hoover start using it recently, Grimes said. It has a little more than 90,000 miles and is in good enough working order to make it worth purchasing, he said.

Councilmen Derrick Murphy and Casey Middlebrooks asked what the city is doing to hold Amwaste accountable. Grimes said the Hoover city clerk’s office has been tracking missed pickups the best they can, but they are dependent on people reporting problems. City officials strongly encourage people to use the My Hoover Connect app to report problems so the city can document how many problems there are.

Also, the city is tallying up all the costs associated with missed pickups, from the trucks and fuel being used to tipping fees and personnel cost to pick up garbage and manage complaints, Grimes said. Those costs will be deducted from the amount the city pays Amwaste, he said.“We have a contract, and we expect them to uphold it,” Grimes said.

A meeting of the Cahaba Solid Waste Disposal Authority is scheduled for 10 a.m. this Wednesday, May 8, in the community room at Hoover City Hall. The meeting is open to the public.

In other business Monday, the Hoover City Council agreed to offer a cash incentive payment to a health technology company that is looking to relocate from California. Besides a site in Hoover, the company is considering sites in Oklahoma, Texas and Florida, said Jackson Pruett, an economic development coordinator for the city.

The company, which was not named, would be investing $308,500 in the relocation and bring 80 jobs with an average salary of $89,300, Pruett said.The proposed payroll tax incentive the council approved would be equal to 0.25% of the total estimated payroll over a period of six years, with a cap of $55,000, he said.

The City Council also:

  • Appointed Jeff Rodgers to the Hoover Public Library Board to fill a vacancy being created by the departure of Hal Humphries, who is leaving the board with 1½ years left on his term.
  • Authorized the mayor to execute a $117,200 grant from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency that will allow the Hoover Fire Department to purchase a 600-square-foot medical shelter and utility terrain vehicle to set up alternative medical facility operations.
  • Authorized the mayor execute a $102,087 grant from ALEA that will allow the Hoover Police Department to purchase 10 automated external defibrillators, 10 thermal imagers and a search and rescue robot
  • Authorized the mayor to execute a $172,479 grant from ALEA that will allow the Hoover Police Department to purchase a new bomb robot
  • Authorized the mayor to execute a $15,000 grant from Jefferson County that will allow the Hoover Senior Center to continue offering nutrition services and a $4,000 grant from Jefferson County to purchase sound equipment and software for the Hoover New Horizons senior group
  • Authorized Chief Financial Officer Jennifer Cornett to execute a $75,000 grant from the Alabama Tourism Department and a $125,000 grant from the Greater Birmingham Convention and Visitors Bureau to assist with the SEC Baseball Tournament
  • Amended the budget to allow the Hoover Police Department to use federal inmate funds to help pay for the automated external defibrillators, thermal imagers, driving training for officers and police academy expenses and the Hoover Fire Department to use opioid funds to pay for painting and a patient loading system for the new rescue truck donated by Jefferson County and to buy nine more cardiac compression devices
  • Increased several building permit fees to a level that Building Inspections Department Director Marty Gilbert said would bring Hoover more in line with other nearby cities and help the department cover its expenses
  • Agreed to let the Birmingham Water Works use city property at 1351 Chapel Road to store materials for an upcoming project along Chapel Road
  • Declared properties at 425 Shades Ave., 2874 Wisteria Drive, 3469 Birchtree Drive and 4547 Highland Crest Circle to be public nuisances due to high weeds and/or grass
  • Had a first reading of an ordinance to rezone about 40% of the Inverness Center North office park (24 acres) to accommodate 289 new apartments, 18,000 square feet of retail space and 15,000 square feet of restaurant space. A Louisiana-based development company called the Stoa Group wants to develop a four-story apartment complex called The Heights at Inverness on 15 vacant acres next to the three roughly 150,000-square-foot office buildings in the park, plus new restaurant and retail space along Inverness Center Parkway. A vote is expected by the council on  May 20.
  • Recognized the Hoover High School marching band for winning a 7A state championship for the third time in five years and the school’s concert bands and jazz bands for achieving superior ratings at state assessments
  • Recognized Hoover resident Patrick O’Mara for breaking the Guinness World Record for most speeches given in a 24-hour period
  • Recognized May 12-18 as Police Week and May 13 as Peace Officers Memorial Day

See the video from Monday night's council meeting on The Hoover Channel YouTube page.