City Utilities committee backs five-year trash contract with Kimball Recycling

The Baberton City Council's City Utilities committee on Jan. 12 recommended legislation to enter a five-year contract with Kimball Recycling & Disposal for residential garbage pickup and curbside recycling, with the contract proposed to take effect March 1, 2026 and emergency wording requested.

Service director (letter name recorded as "Todd Shree") and contract representative Mister Shreve described the procurement as four separate bid packages covering residential pickup, containers/dumpsters, emergency roll-off services and street-sweeping disposal. Mister Shreve said Kimball submitted the lowest residential bid at $20.79 in year one; competitor Rumpke bid $22.70 for year one. According to the presentation, Kimball proposed a 3% increase in year two and roughly 3.2% increases in years three through five; Rumpke proposed a 3% increase across all five years.

Mister Shreve outlined operational details the city will track if a contract is approved: call and complaint logs, monthly phone meetings, procedures for narrow-alley pickups and handling oversized or infested items. He noted the bid structure intentionally separated service lines so the city could award different vendors for dumpsters, roll-offs or residential service if that produced savings or better service.

The committee discussed reliability concerns and reporting. Mister Shreve said Kimball maintains a complaint log and that city staff (Vanessa, named in the record) is in regular contact with Kimball; he invited council to submit questions by Thursday noon so Kimball representatives could prepare for the next Tuesday meeting.

The committee voted to call the trash contract request out and place it on the consent agenda for council consideration. No final contract adoption occurred at the Jan. 12 meeting; the motion forwarded the item for legislative action with Kimball scheduled to appear for questions.