City of Buchanan issued the following announcement on July 23
Here is an important brochure that we just received with some updated information regarding the trash service change that will be taking place soon in the City of Buchanan. Every household and business with waste and/or recycle service in the City will also be receiving a mailed brochure with details early next week, arriving directly from Michiana Recycling and Disposal.
This change was discussed several times at public meetings that were publicly noticed, both online and outside City Hall. The upcoming change was also referenced at the bottom of the newsletter included in all recent tax bill mailings, though exact details were not yet available at that time. The delay in having exact details mainly boils down to Republic not providing a customer list to the City or to Michiana when requested, which meant that Michiana had to do individual manual counts before they could develop the details themselves.
Ultimately, the decision to change came down to the fact that once the service was bid out, the overall pricing offered by Republic and Michiana was the same, except that Republic included a "fuel surcharge" fee that would kick in if the price of gas ever went above $4.00 per gallon in the next 5 years. The City deemed that to be a fairly likely possibility, given the current state of inflation. Consequently, the bid was awarded to Michiana, who was the lowest bidder. The reason that the service was bid out in the first place is because the underlying contract expired. The service was bid out in a fashion that required both parties to submit pricing for the same levels of service that everyone is currently receiving. So other than having a brand new bin (or two brand new bins if you recycle), little will change.
Upon inquiry, we received a comment today from the City's Republic representative as follows regarding questions related to prepayment of Republic bills: "Our system will automatically process these refunds back to the customers. 95% of the residents are paid through August, so we will close down the accounts end of July, the system will then start the refund process, with checks most likely arriving back to the residents by the end of August."
Additional questions may be directed towards either Republic or Michiana, depending upon the nature of the concern. Otherwise, people are always welcome to contact City Hall--but the information we have is the same as what is being provided here.
Thank you everyone for your patience and understanding as we move forward with a new service provider to hopefully save everyone money in the long run!
Original source can be found here.
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