The Cudahy City Council on June 17 opened a public hearing and approved an annual adjustment to solid-waste and recycling handling fees and later adopted a third amendment to the city’s franchise agreement with Republic Services to implement state-mandated organic-waste (SB 1383) requirements.

Assistant to the city manager John Prazos presented the fee hearing and said Republic Services requested a CPI-based increase of 4.71% for residential accounts and 5.19% for commercial accounts; the council received public comment and moved to receive the request and adopt Resolution No. 25-31 levying the adjusted fees. "This item pertains solely to the annual CPI based rate adjustment request and is not related to SB 1383 compliance implementation," Prazos said during the hearing.

At a later agenda item, city staff brought forward a proposed third amendment to the franchise agreement that would extend the contract term from Jan. 1, 2031, to Jan. 1, 2034, and authorize implementation of Republic Services’ proposal to roll out the additional organic bin and associated staffing and equipment needs required by SB 1383. City staff noted the amendment relies on a phased rate structure and that the city would not experience direct impact to the general fund because implementation costs are passed to customers through updated rates.

A Republic Services representative clarified that if the council approved the franchise amendment, the July automatic annual increase under the existing contract would be skipped for the period covered by the amendment, and future annual adjustments would follow the new index-based formula. "The new proposed increase is set to a specific index and doesn't have all the variables that our current annual increase has," the Republic representative said, adding the long-term index averages lower than recent increases.

Council members asked whether the SB 1383 rollout included the green organics bin; staff explained SB 1383 implementation and the third-bin rollout was handled under the franchise-amendment item (agenda item 14f), while the earlier fee hearing (agenda item 13a) addressed only the annual CPI-based adjustment.

The council voted to receive and file the rate adjustment request and to approve the resolution levying the adjusted fees; council later voted to approve the third amendment to the Republic Services agreement, with staff to bring required public hearings and notices as part of legal compliance.