- All right, seeing as we have a quorum, I will call to order this meeting of the Waste Reduction District of Monroe County Board of Directors for Wednesday, no, for Thursday, March, June 13th. It says March on the agenda. Well, oh, sorry. June 12th, I'm sorry. I don't know what day it is. June 12th, 2024. I'm sorry, I did not update the agenda, I'm sorry. Mr. McClassen, could you please call the roll?
- Thank you. So for your information, we have two sets of executive committee meeting minutes in the packet. The first is from a virtual meeting held with the Rocky Mountain Institute.
- consultants regarding possible solar installation at the landfill. And the second is the regular executive committee meeting. Both of those took place on April 29th. Are there any questions or comments related to those minutes? Okay. Then we can move on to the approval of Board of Director meeting minutes for May 8th. Is there a motion?
- I move to approve the minutes from May 8th. OK. There's a motion and a second. Are there any questions or comments on these minutes? OK. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Those minutes are adopted. Next, we will move to the controllers report from Teresa Gones. Please go ahead with the cash flows.
- The cash flow summary is on page 11 of your board packet. Here are the balances as of May 31st for the following account. Operating $3,802,289.98.52. Closure bond debt is $13,338.47. Capital is $46,029.72.
- And the closure is $804,225.40. The individual cash flow statements for each of these are on pages 12 through 17 of your packet, and the operating fund graph is on page 14. Are there any questions on the account balances? Are there any questions for our controller on this?
- question, the closure bond debt account, when does that end? When does the bond end? February of 27 is our final payment. So four payments left. Thank you. And then I had one other question. When I look at the
- the expenses and the operating account, I just kind of usually look at to make sure that our percent remaining is about right for the calendar year. And I noticed that retirement under personnel services retirement, we've already spent 85%. So I'm wondering,
- whether we might run into problems in making that budget. Because we've already spent 6,000 and we had 7,000 budgeted. You're looking at the health savings account line? No, the one above it. Retirement. Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. It's the HSA line. I find it hard to go across such a wide document. And it's small.
- So is that something where we pay a bunch upfront, or why has that largely been taken up? Due to the savings presented to the employee, as well as the district, using the health savings account, health insurance policy, the district does make an annual contribution to the health savings account fund.
- of those employees every year when they renew into that coverage. Is that in the fall? It's in January, when the policy renews in January. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you. Are there any other questions on the cash balances?
- can move on to payroll and claims. On page 18 of the packet, you have a summary of the pre-approved payroll and claims since our last meeting and the amount of $291,744.49. The backup for those numbers are on pages 19 through 60. The claims for approval this week were sent in an email on Wednesday and are an amount of
- $48,353.78. Documentation was included in the Wednesday email. That brings the total of all payroll claims that we are recommending for approval to $340,098.27. Are there any questions regarding these claims? All right. Any questions about payroll and claims? I have a question.
- We had several payments to Caldwell Environmental for the pickup of refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners, et cetera. And I'm just wondering how much is subsidized and how much is paid for by fees that people pay. I think it's $20 per appliance item. Do we have a sense of how much that's subsidized?
- Off the top of my head, I apologize. I do not, unfortunately, Mr. Long was ill today and is not in attendance. We can certainly get that information and provide that to the board. Yeah, that would be helpful. But the fee that we charge to residents that bring free-on appliances to us is $20 per unit, $50 if it's a commercial size, commercial grade unit.
- I'm not opposed to subsidizing it, but I'd like to know what amount we are subsidizing. We don't want them by the side of the road. We can certainly put that together for you. Thank you. Okay. I'll entertain a motion to approve the payroll and claims. Second.
- Mayor Thompson has joined us as one of the board of directors. So we have a motion and a second to approve payroll and claims. Is there any further discussion? We'll go to the public. Is there any member of the public who would like to comment on payroll and claims? I don't see any hands going up. So all right.
- All in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, that motion passes and the payroll and claims are approved. We will next move on to resolution 2025-09. Mr. McClassen, would you like to describe this for us? Sure. Page 61 of your packet is a memo kind of describing what we're asking here.
- Excuse me. Recently, one of our site operators resigned to move on to other things and moving people around and looking at schedules and scheduling time off for the employees that have benefit leave and stuff. Mr. Long and I thought it would be in the best interest of the district to increase the pool of replacement site operators by one from five to six since that.
- The number of site operators is designated as five in the salary ordinance. Thought it was appropriate to ask that we amend the salary ordinance to indicate that to be six. Should not have any impact on our budget or wage appropriations.
- The replacement operators only work when somebody is sick or on vacation. So regardless of how many of them we have, the amount of work available stays the same. Okay. Thank you, Mr. McClassen. Let's put a motion on the table. Somebody could move to approve. I move approval. Second. Okay.
- Motion to approve resolution 2025-09 to amend resolution 2024-13, ordinance for fixing salaries for 2025. Any questions or comments from directors? Yes, Councilor Wilz? Yeah, on page one of the resolution, it lists out all the different positions and it looks like how many of those positions
- are included in the salary ordinance under the recycling stations. It says site operators eight and then site operators backup six. So all six of those positions are just for backup.
- Is that correct? They're on-call positions with no scheduled hours that are available to fill in when one of the regularly scheduled site operators is sick or on vacation or otherwise unable to work. And they're held by six entirely separate people from the eight that are there regularly? Yeah. Fascinating.
- And like I said, Mr. Long and I looked at this and we looked at the amount of benefit leave that the regular operators have available, how much time they have been scheduling and taking off. And we have actually had to pay a little overtime to employees from the South Walnut facility to cover a couple of shifts this year because we did not have a relief operator. Did the backup site
- Operators is it does it operate similarly? Trying to think similar to maybe like a substitute teacher call list. Yeah, OK, just trying to wrap my head around how things work. Thank you. Any other questions or comments on the resolution 2025 09? OK, is there any member of the public who would like to speak to resolution 2025 09?
- see any takers. So since we're all here in person, I will go for, can we do a voice vote? Or do we? Yeah, okay. So all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That resolution is adopted. So now we will have six backup site operators. So next we have a declaration of surplus property. Mr. McGlasson, you want to review this for us, please?
- certainly with the with the acquisition of the two new box trucks for our green business network program that gives us an excess number of vehicles so we have two trucks that we'd like to have declared surplus property so that we can make them available for thank you and I see that Commissioner Lee Jones has joined us and has a hand raised perhaps she would just like to be able to
- be made a cohost or whatever it takes. I'm sorry. I just, I just wanted you to know that I'm here and I think you'll have to do rolled call to votes. Yes. Thank you. Uh huh. And maybe, um, we could enable her camera as well. Yes, in order. Oh, I have it turned off. It has to be seen and heard in order to, that's right. I'm sorry.
- All right, welcome. So let's get a motion on the table for resolution 2025-10. Move approval of resolution 2025-10, declaration of surplus property. It's been moved and seconded. Are there any questions or comments from board members?
- Yes, Councilor Wilts. One of the trucks is valued at $0. Yeah, we held it long enough. It's the value has depreciated off the books. Wow. Okay. And so how does that work when you put it on? What did you say the website? We use govdeals.com for the auction website.
- Um, it just, it just means we won't set a reserve on that auction. Okay. All right. So it just gets bit at starting whatever. Okay. Cool. All right. Any other questions or comments from directors? Let's go to the public. Is there anybody in the public who would like to comment on resolution 2025-10? Whether online, you can raise your hand or.
- We have one person here in chambers, but he is not moving. So I don't think he has a comment. All right, seeing none. Mr. McClassen, could you please call a roll call vote on resolution 2025-10? Thompson? Yes. Joe? Yes. Piedmont Smith? Yes. Swafford? Yes. Madera?
- Yes. Motion passes unanimously. All right, thank you. So we will get rid of those old trucks. Now we can move on to the matter of a continuing pilot program for composting. Resolution 2025-11. Mr. McGlasson, would you like to give us an introduction here?
- Certainly. This is actually something that was introduced at last month's meeting, but the board elected to table it because we did not have the memorandum of understanding in place with the city for their agreement.
- to fund half of the project. That memorandum of understanding has now been agreed to, obviously can't be signed off on until our old board approves it. So the resolution is seeking approval of two agreements, one being the memorandum of understanding with the city. They'll contribute $12,750, half of the funding
- of the cost of the project. And the second would be the service agreement with one sustainable Joe to to move forward with what we're calling a second phase of our multi dwelling complex composting project where we'll seek to bring new complexes into the program as well as well as continue support for the existing participants of that. All right, thank you.
- So this resolution would approve both the MOU with the city to share the financing of this and the new service agreement with One Sustainable Joe. Let's get a motion on the table if somebody could make a motion to approve. Second. So that's resolution 2025-11. Approval of memorandum of understanding between Waste Reduction District and City of Bloomington.
- and approval of collective composting program phase two service agreement. Are there any questions from board members or comments? We have discussed this, as Mr. McClassen said, we discussed this last month. So I do have a question, and it may be one that Mr. Buenia from One Sustainable Joe will,
- will need to address. So the original agreement was for $55,000, half paid by the city and half by the district. And this one is significantly smaller, so the total is $27,500. And yet, it seems to me that we are hoping for up to six sites, which was the same breadth of the first phase. So I guess I'm wondering,
- how the six sites could be attained with half the money. I mean, certainly there were startup costs, but Mr. Winnia, would you mind speaking to that? Yes, absolutely. Joseph Winnia here from One Sustainable Joe. Good observation. And yes, actually the startup of the program itself represented a significant cost that was incorporated in the first phase that will not be necessary for the second phase because all the materials and all of the program have been established.
- Also, the original estimate was more generous, having less information about what the actual costs would be. So the revised costs are accounting for the actual expenses incurred rather than an estimate of what they might be. So that's what made for that difference. Thank you. Are there any other questions for either Mr. Winnia, Mr. McClassen about this MOU and service agreement?
- I'll just make a comment that I'm really enthusiastic about this and grateful for your ability to keep costs down. I think we're all quite aware that compostables are taking up far too much of our landfill space and causing gas outputs that we don't want. And so really appreciate your innovation here and hope this is the start of
- something even bigger. So I will follow up with a question also since we are now in mid-June and the service agreement says that this should be concluded by the end of calendar year. Is it feasible that if you had six interested sites that they could all be onboarded before then?
- I think it's possible I think that would be tight, likely, but I guess I would also add that the design of this agreement, as compared to the previous is that it's based more on a calendar year cycle, so that it's easier to deal with the appropriation of funding whereas the first phase.
- extended over almost a two-year period, this would be even if fewer sites were met, a similar agreement could potentially be made based on another year cycle since only the funds spent are allocated. So if they are unspent, they won't be at a cost to the district. If fewer sites are achieved, the proportional amount would be paid during this contract
- that balance could be added to a futures contract if desired. Right. OK. Thank you for highlighting that. That makes sense. So we'll remain optimistic. But if not all the funds are used, then we will retain them for possible future extension or other purposes. Thank you. All right.
- Let's go to the public. Is there any member of the public who would like to speak to resolution 2025-11? Raise your hands in teams if you'd like to speak. Anybody? And I'll just echo Mayor Thompson's comment that this is a great continuation of a pilot project that we hope will
- to achieve some sustainability with the sites continuing to compost food waste so that it doesn't go to landfill. All right. Any final comments from directors? Mr. McGlasson, will you please call the roll on resolution 2025-11? Jones? Yes. Thompson? Yes. Wilts? Yes. Piedmont-Smith?
- Swafford? Yes. Madera? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Okay, great. Thank you, Mr. Winnia. We can actually, well, we don't have a CAC report. I was going to say Mr. Winnia could stay at the microphone, but there is no report. I understand this time. So we'll move to department reports.
- I would, a written report was not submitted for the packet. I would, I don't know if Mr. Wenyo had any verbal report that he wanted to make on behalf of the CAC or not. I do actually have a couple of verbal notes. I apologize if there isn't a printed report. Go ahead. We did actually have some activity over the last month. In particular, our booth at the city's farmer market was reserved.
- And our vice chair, Matt Austin, has already been there a couple of times with materials, promotional materials to represent the CAC. We also approved funding for signage so that we can have a better visual representation both for this particular booth and any other events where the CAC may be attending. And then lastly, we discussed and approved our 2026 CAC budget request.
- which you will soon see if you haven't already, but in short, it has the same values as our previous year with a couple of additional requests, one of which would be a continued amount for the, sorry, the rental cost for the continued use at the farmer's market for a subsequent year, and then also a funding increase for training and education
- for potential additional members or larger membership if the recruitment efforts are successful. And that is all I have to report. Thank you, Mr. Winnia. Any questions from board members? Yes, Councillor Wills. When you say training and education, you're talking about maybe onboarding new members of the CEAC. Is that
- Our training and education funding has four members of the CHC to receive training or education, which either exclusively or at least predominantly so far has been used for attendance at the AISWMD annual conference. Oh, OK, great. Thank you. Any other questions or questions for Mr. Winnia about the Citizens Advisory Committee? No? OK. Thank you so much.
- Mr. McGlassen, I don't see it on the agenda, but at some point, we should talk about a joint meeting with the CAC about the budget. Yes, and this is probably as good a time as any. And I apologize. I was remiss. We discussed that at the executive committee meeting, and it was supposed to be on the agenda. Historically, the board has held a joint meeting with the CAC. One of the two required joint meetings
- that the statute calls for every year in July to review the budget proposal for the next year, for the coming year that has historically that joint meeting has been piggybacked either on the July board meeting or the July CAC meeting.
- I think at the executive committee, the thought was that it would be best to try to piggyback that onto the board of directors meeting for July. So we needed to get the board's opinion and availability to hold our regular meeting, July meeting at four o'clock and then the availability to stay a little bit longer to meet jointly with the CAC to
- to review the budget proposal that will be presented to the board as a part of the regularly scheduled meeting. If I could ask my fellow directors to check their calendars for July, what's the date, 10th? To add the joint meeting with the CAC to the regular board meeting so perhaps
- at the most from four to six, instead of four to five, probably. Yeah, there shouldn't, other than the budget presentation, unless something unexpected comes up, there shouldn't be a whole lot else on the agenda. It looks like I have a hard stop at 530 that night, but I could be here four to 530.
- The caveat to it all is that, you know, the statute requires the board and the CAC to meet jointly twice each calendar year. And in order for that to be an official meeting, there must be a quorum of both bodies present. Councillor Wells can be here. Oh, okay. So Mr. Swafford is not sure. I am not available that day.
- I believe that the executive committee meeting commissioner Thomas indicated she was available. Okay, so I want to be available. Mr. Jones is available. Yes. It looks like we would have a quorum at least until 530 and talk fast. Pardon me. We'll just talk fast. Try to be efficient. All right. Thank you all.
- If Mr. Swofford, if you could get back to Tom on that, I'd appreciate that. All right. Well, let's move to department reports and back to Mr. McClassen. Well, first and foremost, as I think most everybody is aware, on June the 1st, we did switch our
- vendor for the management of our recyclables and our orange bags and our bulky items from Republic to Rumpke. By all accounts the transition from one vendor to the other went very smoothly at all the facilities so we're pleased with that and certainly and thank both Republic and Rumpke for working with us to make that as smooth a transition as possible.
- But the switch does also has opened some new avenues for us with regards to some recyclable materials that we can now accept. I would note that the first announcement that went out regarding coated cartons and what's in the memo and my memo in the board packet, we did have a miscommunication with Rumkey. We can take wax coated cartons, the milk, juice, soup, broth, things like that.
- the originally we had said they would be with go with cardboard the Romkey actually wants them with our mixed paper so we can take those but they need to go in with the mixed paper bin additionally we can also take if you larger quantities of produce sometimes come in a coated cardboard box we can take those and those will go with cardboard so
- So that's about you know, but we're excited to be able to expand that offering to the residents to the people that use our facilities. And by all accounts, the response to the announcements has been large and supportive. So we're people's do seem to be to be pleased with that. So and again, we're still
- you know, still working out some of the finer details with, you know, Rumpke as far as how this all works and, sorry, you know, for exactly how they want materials sorted and what that means for our collection practices. But I don't, there's not gonna be large scale changes for anything, you know, any one stream in particular.
- So it should go pretty smoothly and should be pretty easy for staff and our customers to figure out. And we're excited to move forward with that. Also, I do want to point out the second bullet point in my memo, as we've done in some previous years, we've sold rain barrels and compost bins kind of as an Earth Day promotion. This year's orders were far and away the most we've ever done.
- And that was really, really exciting to see. So we are pleased to see the interest in that and the number of both the compost bins and the rain barrels that we sold.
- uh the organic waste task force that we've talked about here and there uh we did we do have our first uh host pilot resident uh set up the up and running and getting them connected uh with neighbors it is in the elm heights neighborhood uh in the city uh but we're excited to get that pilot uh project up and running
- Uh, we're, uh, for our second site, uh, we're reaching out. We have some, uh, some good response in the Ellensville area. So we're going to try to get a second site set up here in the near future in the, excuse me, in the Ellensville area. Uh, and what this is is, uh, we have, uh, one property owner that agrees, uh, to accept food waste for composting from their neighbors. And, uh, we help them get, get set up with, you know, get,
- with whatever they need to be able to compost in their yard and get them connected with neighbors that have an interest in bringing their food waste to a neighbor instead of throwing it out with their trash. And if you'll recall, this goes back to a survey we put out toward the end of last year, an online survey that
- I'm gonna look to Mr. Winnie. I think we're over 200 responses, 300, we're over 300 responses now. So there's certainly a lot of interest in the Monroe County for people to do something with their food waste. So we are working through that list and trying to identify people that said that they would be willing to accept food waste from their neighbors and get them connected with neighbors that said they would like to take their food waste
- to somebody to be composted. So we're excited to finally get that up and running and hope that we can really get that program established and out in a lot of areas as we move through the summer. I think the last thing that I really do want to point out is see that we do I think talk before we got our waste tire grant from the state and we have finalized the schedule for the tire amnesty event. It will be September 9th
- from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Monroe County Fairgrounds, September 6th, I'm sorry. I can tell when you're zeroing in because I said something different than you're reading. So September 6th, Saturday at the Monroe County Fairgrounds, thankful to the Fairgrounds and the Fair Board for be willing to partnering with us or to partner with us and make that facility available.
- and there's again reaction to the announcement of that has been good and positive and we're anticipating a good event. I would just remind residents that have tires that they want to hold until that event that they should be stored indoors or otherwise covered or stored in a manner that prevents them from collecting and holding water.
- while you wait for that event. And if that's not something that you can do, we do take tires, waste tires at our household hazardous waste facility any day that they're open for nominal fees. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. McClassen. Yes, we don't want them to become mosquito breeding grounds, which is what tends to happen if you let them gather water outside.
- Um, any questions from board members for the department report? Yes. Um, so if someone was interested in the neighborhood recycling program, is there a specific, um, flyer or part of your website that they should go visit? How would they get in touch? Well, it, um, we do have a flyer. Um,
- that I would take, I will make another Facebook post and put that flyer on there that has a QR code that will take them to the online survey. That'd be great, yeah, thank you. I have another question, if that's okay. I see that it's nice that there's a big pop-up on the website that announces the wax-coated paper board acceptance, and it says no caps.
- And no straws, which makes sense. Could we clarify, though, if you've got the milk carton that has the other type of plastic stuck in it to hold the cap. Plastic spout. That's the thing. Do we take that off? Well, I mean, I think that ideally, yes. But the vendor has advised that to leaving them on would not present
- an amount of contamination that would be an issue for them. Great. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification. Any other questions, comments? All right. Thank you, Mr. McClassen. Are you going to give the report on behalf of Joey Long since he's not here? Right. All right. Go for it.
- I'm going to go back to switch to rum key and just we do have a new signage ordered for our cardboard and paper bins to reflect the changes that we discussed earlier. So those are those are on their way. Again, you know, staff has made the transition has worked well for staff. And I know that Mr Long is working with the
- the employees at all the recycling centers. One other change that doesn't necessarily have a direct impact on customers but does on the district, you know, Rumpke in their proposal said that if we called in a box to be switched out before 3 p.m., they would change it out that day. If it was after 3 p.m., it would be changed out the next business day or Saturday would be the only day that
- they don't haul Saturday and Sunday, but Saturday we're open, they don't haul. So we're really working with the staff to really try to take advantage of that and maximize the volume that we're getting in the boxes, which should really help reduce the number of hauls and thus our hauling costs moving forward. So that's another thing that we're working on.
- And you'll see the first bullet point under the hazardous materials item in his memo we are we are having a problem with the oil that's being brought to our facilities that is has water or other non petroleum products in it.
- and that that does cause a problem for our vendor and it does result in an extra cost to the district when they pull that oil and have to process that and could even inhibit the ability to recycle that oil so we really ask you know ask ask people to make sure that they were not mixing the antifreeze and the oil that we're not leaving a stored oil that's waiting to come into our facility out where it can
- get exposed to rain or the elements and get water in it because that adds cost to us and also potentially reduces the volume of the oil that we're actually getting recycled. So we ask people to work with us on that and try to do a better job. And another thing we're going to ask residents, the first bullet point on the rural recycling centers, we were catching some people that are
- bringing trash and orange bags that are not our orange bags. Yes, you can go out on amazon.com or the Walmart website and order orange bags. Some have writing on them, some don't.
- The money that we get from the sale of those orange bags is how we pay for the disposal and the hauling of that material. And unfortunately, we're not in a position to offer everything that we do for free. And so we really need people to watch and make sure that the trash that's being brought to our rural recycling centers is in the district's orange bag, which is how that program is funded.
- But answer any questions if anybody has any questions. Thank you for that report for recycling and reuse hazardous materials on behalf of Joey Long. Sorry to hear that. People are getting sneaky with the orange bags. All right. Keep an eye on that. Ironically, one of the pictures that one of the site operators did send to us, it was a hefty renew bag that was in our which
- that's meant for recycling. And unfortunately, the hefty renew program is something that we've investigated. Unfortunately, it's not something that's being offered here. The district is probably not in a position to start one of. We would need to partner with somebody like Rumpke or Republic to get something like that going.
- But it is something that we're looking at and we do, and we do, Rumpke does do the Renew program out of the Cincinnati area. So hopefully they will, you know, move that up here in the near future so we can get something like that going. And for those that aren't aware, Hefty Renew is a program for hard to recycle plastics, straws, fast food lids, plastic bags, things like that. Not for trash.
- Tom, any questions about this departmental report? Seeing none, we will move on to Mr. Lee Paulson with the Landfill and Compliance Department. Good afternoon, Lee Paulson, Landfill Director, Environmental Compliance. The report
- is there speaks for itself. Just to highlight that we were able to, at least the first part of the month, get the groundwater sampling event all taken care of. This was our long list. There's a lot of lab bills that are going to be coming through eventually because there's an extremely large number of parameters that we got to test for each well per the state requirements.
- Other than that, everything went well. And right now we're just still dealing with, we had a large amount of rain for the end of May and first part of June here. So we're dealing with that as best we can. We're dealing with it. It's just last weekend, we were supposed to get like a half inch rain and we got like three and a half inches of rain. So that's a lot all at one time. So other than that, if anybody has any questions, I'll be happy to answer and go from there.
- Thank you, Mr. Paulson. Any questions on that departmental report? Hard to keep up with the rain and the unpredictability of it. So thank you for that. Mother nature has a way. But thankfully we got good people. I mean, Bynum, Faneuil, Kevin Hunter was Johnny on the spot helping us out with
- some stuff and I was out there on Sunday and Marybeth has been great with, you know, making sure that we're all out there doing what we can do. Well, we appreciate it. All right. Seeing no questions on that report, we'll move to I think open public comment is next. Is there any member of the public who would like to make a general comment about the waste reduction district activities?
- And raise your hand if you're on teams. Don't see anybody. So we'll move on to comments from directors. Is there any member of the board of directors who would like to make a comment? No? All right. Well, thank you all so much. Thank you to our dedicated staff and looking forward to seeing the results of the phase two composting pilot and the neighborhood composting program.
- and I think we can adjourn.