SIDNEY — Representatives for the city’s trash hauler got an earful of complaints from Sidney City Council Monday night.

Republic Services’ conversion to automated solid-waste collection “was a disaster,” Mayor Mike Barhorst told Season Wall, Bellefontaine division manager, and Terry Thompson, area municipal services manager, for Republic. The Republic reps pledged to make improvements.

“The Republic staff was thoroughly overwhelmed, telephone calls were not returned, containers were delivered to customers who did not want them, they were not delivered to customers who did want them, information was simply not shared with customers, and apparently not even your own employees,” Barhorst said in a prepared statement. “On top of that, in my opinion, the ultimate sin committed by a company whose sole purpose it is to collect refuse, refuse was not collected on schedule and there was no way to contact anyone to let them know that their garbage had not been picked up.

“As a result of the mishandling of the roll-out of this program, our staff ended up dealing with a host of problems we never anticipated. Staff spent countless hours of time answering citizen complaints — complaints that could have been far more easily addressed by Republic — the company we believed would be handling the service because we contracted with them to handle that service.”

Referring to a motto on Republic’s website — “You can count on us” — Barhorst said, “I’m sorry, but it certainly doesn’t seem like we can count on you.”

Barhorst asked what assurances Republic could give that there wouldn’t be a repeat of these problems. “We have a 10-year contact with you,” he said. “Should we be rethinking that contract?”

“You have my commitment for better service forward,” Wall said. With changes, “there are significant challenges.” She told of staff changes to supervise drivers and in office personnel that would improve service.

A third-party company delivered containers and Republic had to handle nearly 900 customer requests for changes in container sizes, Wall said. Only 45 of those requests remain to be completed.

Customer participation in recycling has risen from 30 percent to nearly 100 percent, which has posed another challenge, Wall said.

Wall offered her “personal commitment” to improve service, saying the problem “embarrasses me personally.”

Councilman Darryl Thurber urged Wall to “take these lessons learned” as Republic deals with other cities. He talked about the third-party contractor delivering containers in the middle of the street and not including a printed trash-pickup schedule with the containers. “I know that was a big, huge miss throughout the city,” he said.

Wall said at the time of the transition, Republic’s offices experienced a four-day telephone outage. This aggravated the problem of customers’ calls not being returned.

Because of the great increase in recycling participation, Thompson proposed to split recycling between A and B routes for each pickup territory. This would spread out the flow of items going to the recycling center. Currently, each territory has recycling pickup every other week. If the territories are split, recycling pickup still would be every other week, but in either the A or B section.

Thompson said the biweekly pickup was done to save money, but Republic didn’t count on the success of the recycling program and the effort required at the recycling center to sort the commingled recyclables. He said the commingle operation is a new program at the center.

Thurber was concerned that another change in the pickup schedule might confuse customers. Barhorst said it is important that customers get fliers with the new schedule on it; unlike what happened with the earlier conversion. He favored changing the recycling pickup schedule soon, rather than waiting until March, as Thompson had proposed. Vice Mayor Mardie Milligan said the schedule also should be clearly posted on the city’s website.

Also concerning the change to automated pickup, council revisited the case of a multi-unit residence at 401-409 Michigan St. The owner of the property, Harold Long, of New Bremen, had attended an earlier council meeting to discuss trash pickup. Because the city’s ordinance covers residential pickup for three-unit residences or smaller, Long must contract with a trash hauler for his larger complex.

Gary Clough, assistant city manager/public works director, told council Monday night that owners of seven similar multi-unit residences had already contracted with trash haulers. Clough said Long would not have to get a trash Dumpster for the property in order to contract with a hauler; bags or cans could be used.

Prior to the transition to the container system, the tenants at Long’s property were being individually serviced and billed under the city’s solid-waste-collection program. During the container-delivery process, this multi-unit property was identified as not eligible for individual service. At that time a letter was sent to Long advising him of his obligation to provide solid-waste collection to this property, Clough said.

Council requested that staff analyze its customer records to determine the impact of changing the number of residential units permissible for individual service and billing under the ordinance. Clough said staff is still acquiring information on other residential units having greater than three units which would not qualify for the city’s residential trash-collection-service contract. He said excluding such multi-unit complexes from citywide pickup contract is standard across the country.

Councilman Steve Wagner said he didn’t see why the city couldn’t be pick up trash at Long’s property, as well as the other similar properties, as it had in the past. He acknowledged the ordinance would have to be changed.

Most of council either favored keeping the current ordinance or said either option would be OK. Barhorst asked the staff to contact Long.