This November St. Paul voters will find an unusual question on the ballot regarding trash hauling. They’ll vote “yes” or “no” on the city ordinance entitled “Residential Coordinated Collection,” with a “no” vote being “a vote to get rid of Ordinance 18-39.”
What isn’t clear, even to St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter’s office, is exactly what happens if a majority of the voters choose to vote “no.”
If the ordinance underpinning organized trash collection is upended, is the city’s contract with a group of private haulers automatically terminated?
Or will the city continue the contract, minus direct billing to customers? If so, the city would have to pay haulers $27 million next year, funded by property taxes, requiring a 17 percent increase to the city tax levy in 2020, Carter said Friday.
RELATED: St. Paul’s organized trash will go to the ballot, Minnesota Supreme Court rules
Addressing reporters and critics outside his City Hall office, the mayor said the Minnesota Supreme Court’s expedited ruling this week allowing a question on organized collection to move to ballot isn’t clear on the potential outcomes.
The court indicated on Thursday it will issue a lengthier decision in the future. But the justices wanted the city to make Friday’s deadline for getting ballot language forwarded to Ramsey County Elections.
“The Supreme Court ruled that the ordinance will remain in effect through the election,” said Carter. “This means St. Paul’s current citywide garbage collection will continue … The court issued their decision, but has not yet explained the rationale for their ruling. Our path forward won’t be completely clear until we receive that information, but we will abide by the court’s final determination.”
Mike Schumann, landlord: If voters vote ordinance down but Carter keeps hauler contract in place, there will be “more litigation. It’s obvious they’re going to lose.” He says rates are so high Waste Management threw a buying party and joyfully bought a bunch of smaller haulers. pic.twitter.com/Kb9aODvy2U
— Frederick Melo, Reporter (@FrederickMelo) August 23, 2019
Carter said that trash hauling will continue as-is for the foreseeable future — and to his knowledge, for the remainder of the five-year contract. Residents should continue to pay the bills they receive in the mail from private haulers.
Ramsey County District Court Judge Leonardo Castro previously allowed Ordinance 18-39 to continue to be in effect until the results of the ballot question are canvassed and made official.
“The effect … is that the ordinance is in operation,” said Assistant City Attorney Rachel Tierney, addressing the council as they debated the proposed ballot language late Friday afternoon.
Dubbing themselves St. Paul Trash and St. Paul Cartless, critics of the five-year contract presented the city with more than 6,000 signatures last October in an effort to get Ordinance 18-39 put on the public ballot.
However, the St. Paul City Council refused at the time, noting they had signed a binding contract with 11 haulers some 10 months earlier. The haulers service St. Paul homes of one-to-four units.
Patricia Hartmann, an attorney running for city council in Ward 3, said the mayor’s interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling was wrong on multiple levels, and organized trash collection must come to a dead halt if voters vote it down.
“The city, pursuant to its charter, absolutely needs an ordinance … (or) they don’t have the legal authority to execute this contract,” said Hartmann, a lead organizer of a petition drive to get the question on the ballot.
Hartmann also noted that the contract negotiated between the city and 11 private haulers included a “force majeure” clause — sometimes known as an “acts of God” clause — that allows for unforeseeable circumstances that might prevent either party from fulfilling their obligations.
Judicial and legislative actions outside the city’s control would meet that definition, Hartmann said, and render the contract void.
Mike Schumann, a St. Paul landlord, told reporters his four-plex used to share a dumpster with a neighboring triplex at nominal cost.
Now, the seven units must each foot the bill for their own trash cart, as required by the city’s organized trash collection system, which does not allow cart-sharing.
Schumann said if voters vote “no” on the ballot question but the contract remains in place, he and other landlords will take the city to court.
There will be “more litigation,” Schumann said. “It’s obvious they’re going to lose.”
Severing the contract, however, could also invite legal action from Waste Management, Republic, and other trash hauling companies that have found it worthwhile to buy out routes from smaller haulers, given what has been widely criticized as elevated billing rates.
When the city launched discussions with private haulers over organized trash collection in 2016, 15 licensed haulers served St. Paul homes. Today, only six haulers remain.