Polk County Executive Robby Hatcher has asked the City of Copperhill to pay for one trash haul per month.
Hatcher joined members of Copperhill’s city council during a regular meeting Monday, June 15, to explain changes in the county’s garbage dumping sites and ask for help.
“What my proposal is, and I have to take mine back to my body of commissioners, but what I would like to see is for Copperhill to pay for one pull per month,” Hatcher said. “My tonnage rate, I’ll tell everybody, I’m open as I can be, is $22.24 a ton. You’re not gonna take trash anywhere, any cheaper. I promise you.”
Hatcher has also asked that Ducktown participate in one haul per month and Benton, Tennessee, to pay for two hauls per month.
This request comes after the county was facing a “$92,000 a year increase” from Advanced Disposal and took over its own garbage service, according to Hatcher.
A pre-crusher compactor is now at the Grassy Creek dump station, allowing “a lot more garbage in (and) saving taxpayer money by not having as many hauls,” Hatcher said.
“So with putting this piece of equipment in, it has been instrumentally cutting costs.”
Alderman Tara Akins added that the city does not have a dump truck to haul garbage.
Hatcher also suggested borrowing the city’s backhoe to perform work periodically at the Grassy Creek station.
The city will receive a discount for providing this service.
If the city agrees to this proposal, an “inter-local agreement” will be made.
The city will need to set a rate for the county to borrow their backhoe, which will be included in the agreement.
“I would like to have our county attorney, your city attorney, to write up our agreement between the county, Benton, Ducktown and Copperhill, and then that way it’s an agreement,” Hatcher said. “So like with you all having the backhoe, you can put into your agreement what you would charge the county for an hourly rate to have the backhoe to do whatever would need to be done at the county’s dump site.”
Within the next two months the city should come up with a decision, Hatcher said.
A contract for water between the city and Copper Basin Utilities was approved from July 1 through December 1.
The contract involves a $0.25 per thousand increase, which brings the rate to $3.75 per thousand gallons of water. Another $0.25 increase will take place in December. This is the only change to their current agreement.
Mayor Kathy Stewart addressed rumors that surfaced Thursday, June 4, involving protesters headed to Copperhill from Chattanooga, Tennessee.
That day, upon hearing the rumors, Stewart reached out to Polk County Sheriff Steve Ross who quickly discredited the claims, according to Stewart.
“He called me back, there was no developments, nothing, but throughout the day we kept getting social media that they were coming, they left Chattanooga, and I kept in contact with Sheriff Ross, so he came up. And he visited our downtown merchants to ensure that ‘no, this is not going to happen.’” Stewart said.
“The sheriff’s department, they put out a little extra patrol, and I just wanted to thank, publicly, Sheriff Ross for what he did. He didn’t have to, but he made an extra effort.”
Akins moved to table the financial statements from January 6 through June 15 so she can better evaluate them all, which passed.
Mayor Kathy Stewart suggested planning a workshop to go over the financials. A workshop was scheduled for Monday, June 22.
Resident Cecil Arp said that dumping on the edge of roads needs to stop.