By Rich Palzewic
Staff Writer
SEYMOUR – The City of Seymour has signed a 10-year agreement with Harter’s to continue with its residential and city garbage collection.
The resolution was passed at the common council meeting Monday, March 22.
The current five-year contract with Harter’s expires this June.
“We’ve been extremely happy with Harter’s during our five years so far with them,” said Seymour Mayor Ryan Kraft. “They have a presence here in the city. Plus, there won’t be any increase in cost to residents.”
Before Harter’s took over the garbage collection, Seymour collected its garbage on its own.
“We’re also maintaining portions of the program we were anticipating sunsetting right now,” Kraft said. “Residents can place two large items for pickup on the curb. The city has been paying for that, and we intended to not pay for that once the contract came up for renewal. We’ve decided to continue to pay for that because we’ve had good luck with not having any debris ending up in our dumpsters or parks.”
Kraft also gave an update on the search for a village administrator.
“We would have liked to have someone hired at the beginning of the year, but if we can get an offer out to someone and have them in here sometime in April, that’s our timeframe,” he said.
Kraft wouldn’t say how many candidates have applied for the position because the city is still in the process of accepting applications.
He also discussed what the new administrator’s role might look like during the first few weeks on the job.
“Now that we’re getting to the point of conducting interviews and talking with candidates, I wanted to give some feedback about early-on job duties,” he said. “Based on the work the council did, this person needs to get out in the community, meet with business owners and go into schools to meet with administrators. We need to have some roles for this person, instead of having him/her mulling through our audit and looking at our financials. That stuff is important, but I think our candidate needs to understand the makeup of the city first. If he/she would spend the majority of the time doing that the first two weeks, that would be a good thing.”
Kraft also said it’s a good idea to have council members or department heads travel with the new hire to businesses in the city.