Good evening, and welcome to the November 4th, 2026 City of Count City of Plantation Council Workshop. This will be an overview of our proposed, amended, and restated franchise agreement with Waste Management. Ms. Beggarrow, would you please call the roll? Council Member Anderson. Here. Council Member Andreeu. Here. Council Member Horland. Here. Council Member Einstein. Here. Mayor Sortel. Here. Assistant City Attorney Morgan. Here. Thank you. Thank you very much. And who will be presenting? Ms. Morris? You did indeed. So, good evening. Do you want to bring up the slides? I don't sing Jeopardy, so. Okay, here we go. While we're waiting, I'd just like to acknowledge a few people who have worked on this project along with me. First of all, when the idea of doing an amended agreement came to us, we brought it back to the administration, spent some time with Mayor Sortel and Jason Nunnemaker. They've probably spent more time in the last three or four months discussing garbage than they ever wanted to in their lives. But their guidance, as we've gone through this process, has been invaluable. And similarly, I want to acknowledge our public works director, Matt Thompson, and his team. And I'm going to get names wrong, so I apologize. There's Monica Padilla and Crystal Casito and Kathy Ortiz and Becky Khalil and Lexi Morris. And they've all played a vital role in helping us pull this information together. And lastly, I have to acknowledge Quentin, who has also spent more time talking to me in the last few weeks than he ever wanted to in his life. But again, the purpose of tonight's meeting is to talk about the amended and restated franchise agreement for collection of solid waste, bulk trash yard waste, and recyclable materials. I want to spend a minute and talk about how we got to where we're at today. In 2016, the city exercised or initiated a franchise agreement with waste management. It was an initial seven-year term, and there were two five-year extensions available to us. In 2023, we exercised that first renewal. Shortly thereafter, we started experiencing some service problems. Some of them raised to the level that you all were receiving complaints. So we had a number of conversations about waste management and the agreement, et cetera. In 2025, you all told us to be prepared to go out for competitive bids. So we started planning for that and making preparations. In 2025, we issued an RFSP for a solid waste consultant. And in 2026, we awarded that agreement to Mid-Atlantic Solid Waste. In July of this year, and by the way, when we awarded that contract, we began the process of working through and getting ready to position ourselves to go out for bid early next year. So in July of this year, waste management approached us and wanted to talk about an opportunity to make some service changes and extend the agreement, exercise that final renewal term. I threw this in because I want everybody to understand. We recognize that the timing bringing this agreement forward tonight is not optimal. That said, we are a little bit between a rock and the proverbial hard place. We are in a position whereby, and I had a conversation with Mid-Atlantic yesterday. They go by MSW, so if I use the acronym, be prepared. If we notify them by November 19th of our intent to go out for bid, they can meet closely the original schedule. We would likely be back to you with a recommendation for award in July or August. We have to give notice to waste management in late September. Obviously, you want to know who your new hauler is going to be before you provide that notice. It's not a good negotiating position to have your contract expiring and not have a new hauler in place. So that's part of why we're here. We do need to make a decision by November 19th. Your options basically are to approve the amended and restated agreement if you're comfortable with it. We can continue with the RFSP process and go out for bid. And I guess really the third option is you do still have one renewal on the existing franchise agreement. You could make essentially no changes to it and move forward. And that's the big key, the November 19th deadline. So we have a little bit of time. It was our intent all along to bring this to you so that you had some time to mull it over. But that's where we're at in terms of preserving your options for going to bid. Just a quick review. I know you guys all know this, but, you know, the millions viewing at home and those in the audience may not be familiar. Currently, we have two types of service. One is pay-as-you-throw, affectionately known as the blue bags. This type of service is the way we provide collection to the majority of our residents. The residents pay a monthly fee on their utility bill, and then they purchase the blue bags. And the blue bags do have a portion of the disposal cost built into their pricing. So that's why they are more expensive than your standard bags. They have to purchase the blue bags to dispose of their garbage. This style of collection uses a rear-end loader and a two-man crew. Rear-end loaders are typically diesel trucks. It is more sensitive to weather delays. You do have the helper, if you will, who walks behind the truck, collects the garbage bags, and puts them in the hopper. In the event of inclement weather, thunder, lightning, standing water, things like that, they typically have to cut service for a period of time. We've been very lucky the last few days that we've finished all of our routes because we really have had some challenging conditions. So it's more sensitive to weather delays. It has higher workers' comp rates and, obviously, a higher operating cost. The other way of collecting is carts, and this is done through an ASL truck, which is an automated side loader. The areas we have that are currently serviced by carts are Plantation Acres, Melaleuca Isles, Lago Largo, and Hawks Landing. Residents who are serviced by carts pay a fee on their utility bill. They don't have to purchase any special bags. They're done. ASLs are becoming, I'm going to say, the predominant model for collection in South Florida. It is one employee. He's in the cab. He uses, basically, a joystick to manipulate the equipment and dump the carts. So the other thing you may want to be aware of is that the ASLs are natural gas-powered. So moving forward, and enjoy my creativity on this slide, because the expenses are shown in the rust color and the revenue in the green. Had to point that out. We remit a monthly payment to Waste Management for all residential services, and they bill our commercial customers and our multifamily containerized customers directly. So the larger apartment buildings that use dumpsters, our businesses are all billed directly by Waste Management. The city passes through what we're billed from Waste Management directly to residents. We do not mark it up. So the amount we charge to our residents is the amount we pay to Waste Management for collection. We do not, in our contract, presently pay Waste Management for recyclables processing. The way our contract is presently structured, Waste Management is paid for collection and hauling of solid waste, yard waste, bulk waste. They are paid, their fee includes the tipping fees for disposal of those materials. Their fee does not include recyclables processing. Recyclables processing is paid for under a separate contract, ironically enough, with Waste Management. It costs us about $187 a ton, less the value of our recyclables. And recyclables go to the commodities market. We can't talk tonight. Go to the commodities market. And the commodities market does fluctuate. So sometimes we are paying $75 to $80 a month or a ton per month for recyclables processing, and sometimes we're paying much more. The rate that we currently pay, because the contract for household hazardous waste is not with Waste Management, it is with a separate vendor. That said, we pay for that outside of our garbage rates. Both that and recyclables processing are general fund line items. Household hazardous waste runs us about $139,000 a year. And additionally, we are now paying, I'll call it dues. It's a membership contribution to the Broward County Solid Waste and Recycling Authority. Right now that runs us about $120,000 a year. All of those costs are outside of the waste management or outside of the waste management contract. So again, the monthly fee from Waste Management includes qualified solid waste, yard waste, bulk trash, and recyclables collection. It includes the tipping fees for solid waste, yard waste, and bulk trash. It does not include recyclables processing, HHW, solid waste authority, or bad debt. It's important that you recognize that the way we're doing this now, we bill our customers on the utility bill for the cost of collection. If for whatever reason a customer doesn't pay the utility bill, the city is still obligated to pay waste management. So you are sort of holding the bag on potential bad debt. There's one additional benefit that I really need to point out, and that is the services that waste management provides to the city per se. They collect from all of our facilities. We have an array of dumpsters, as some of you know, located at Public Works, where all of our yards, landscaping debris, and roadway debris, and all of that other stuff goes. They collect and dump those. They provide all the containers for our special events, and they also attend to designated bus shelters. So the value of those services, which we don't pay for because they're provided for in the franchise agreement, is about $600,000 a year. So that's a value add we wanted to make sure you were aware of. So the contract. The proposed amended and restated agreement is pretty lengthy. What I've tried to do is capture the key points here. So essentially the first thing is the term would extend through September 30, 2033. So it's the remaining two years on the current term plus the five-year extension. Residential customers would be able to self-select whether they want blue bags or carts and how they want their service managed. New customers, so for instance, if you sold your home and a new customer came in, would default cart service. But individual residents would have their choice. The carts that we'll be using will bear the city's logo, and at the end of the contract will be owned by the city. Before anybody asks, if you're wondering, the carts are warranted for 10 years, so they will have life left in them at the end of this agreement. For those customers that are presently serviced by carts, those containers will be swapped out to the new city container, but not until 2028. We want to get through the rollout phase with our new customers before we go back and replace containers that are existing that are in good condition. Blue bag service will continue. Blue bags will continue to be available at your local retailer via Amazon, and we will continue with the annual bag testing. You need to know that for the phase of fees that you will see at the end of the contract, there is no change in the blue bag price. At this point in time, there will be no changes to routes or collection days. And I know that sounds minor, but from personal experience, when you make changes to people's routes or collection days, you know, Mrs. Morris has been putting out her cart on Tuesdays and Fridays for the last 20 years, and now suddenly it's Monday and Thursday? I'm probably going to be complaining to somebody. And in some cases, that somebody is going to be you guys, so be forewarned. Waste management would take over direct billing of our residential customers. Currently, they again bill our commercial customers and our residential multifamily containerized customers, but they will now take over the residential customers as well. There's a couple of different advantages to this. Number one, it largely insulates the city from the bad debt problem. But number two, it will give residents access to their portal, and they will be able to pay their bills from that portal. They will be able to report missed pickups through that portal. They will be able to see, I don't know, maybe I overslept this morning and I didn't get my cart out on time, and I'm wondering if the truck has been by. They can get that information off the portal. They will visibly see their account number, so if they have to call for service when they call the Waste Manager customer service line, they'll have an account number that they can provide. The local office is going to be staffed up. There will be customer experience reps there. They will be trained on the city's contract, and they will be trained on the transition process. So that should help with that piece. Waste Management has offered to reimburse the city for any costs that we've incurred with MSW, which is our consultant. They are going to, under the current franchise agreement, they pay or they contribute $10,000 a year for education. They are going to continue doing that. With regard to the survey, there is a provision in the existing franchise agreement for Waste Management to do a customer satisfaction survey. What we suggested to them, and they were willing to agree to, was that they work with us and participate in our resident survey, and they will be contributing $10,000 towards the cost of that survey. So Waste Management notifies us early in the spring as to what their proposed rates are going to be for the upcoming fiscal year. So back in March or April, Waste Management provided us notice of what their rates anticipated to be, 10-126. They are willing to hold those rates as previously proposed through 4-1. And we'll talk about 4-1 and what that transition date means. But those rates will be held. Our current franchise agreement has a 5% CPI. This agreement has a 4% CPI. One of our concerns is the SWA and the Broward County Solid Waste Authority. Under our franchise agreements, we designate the facility where materials go for processing. SWA has nothing to do with collection. They're all about disposal. So should the SWA, and they're in the process of formulating their RFPs now, be able to attain or secure better pricing and terms than we have from our current providers, we do have language in the agreement that would allow us to change our designated facilities and take advantage of that pricing. And lastly, we did add a language in the agreement. The SWA is anticipating that right now it's a contribution. Over the next couple of years, they're planning on moving to a surcharge on tipping fees, which tipping fees is what we pay for disposal. So there'll be $1, $2, maybe $3 added to the tipping fee. They are hoping by 2031 to be in a position to become a non-advalorum assessment on the tax bill. There's a lot of reasons why entities go to the tax bill for collection, not the least of which is it does minimize collection and bad debt issues. If the city chooses, we can move to non-advalorum billing. We think the appropriate time to do it would be about the same time the SWA does, 2031. And Waste Management has agreed, and this was a term of the Second Amendment to our current franchise agreement, that they will contribute up to $15,000 towards the cost. It's a match, but up to $15,000. So that would assist us with that. So let's talk about rates. The first column is the 10-1-26 rate. That is the rate that people are going to be billed last month. Sorry, it's already November. We are looking at the transition, the first phase of the rollout for those residents who want to switch to carts to take place on or about April 1st. And you see proposed rates for April 1st. You do see some adjustments in those rates. That's because we asked Waste Management to look at those rates and make sure that they accurately portray the costs of the type of service. So there is an increase, proportionate increase, in the blue bag collection cost. Remember, you have increased labor costs with that method of disposal. And then the 4-1-27 rate shown at the far end is the rate plus a 5% franchise fee. We are proposing that council consider enacting a 5% franchise fee. As I've explained to you, our rate structure does not currently cover all of our costs. Household hazardous waste is outside of it. Recyclables processing is outside of it. Our SWA contribution. All of our management costs with regard to the waste management contract fall outside of that. We don't collect any revenue for any of those pieces. Contract management is an important part of this agreement. The way to get the best performance out of your vendor is to set the bar high and to let them know when they don't need it. So it's a staff-intensive function, and it will continue to be. Again, the franchise fee would assist us in covering the household hazardous waste costs. It would assist us with our SWA costs. It would assist us with our internal management costs. And one of the keys is, as we talk about recycling, right now our costs for processing recycling run about $300,000 a year, and we do not recover that in our rates. Under the new proposal, waste management has built in that $300,000, so that would move from the general fund to the rate structure. But more than that, they have agreed that in the event that our recycling participation increases, and when we look at waste generation rates of communities around us that use carts, it looks like we can reasonably expect that to happen. They will insulate us from that additional expense. So that's a significant benefit. Looking at the transition plan, we're looking at approval before November the 19th. And as soon as that happens, waste management will be responsible for reaching out to residents, advising them of the opportunity to self-select their method of service. If you choose to select carts, you will complete their opt-in process, and the deadline for the first opt-in process is January 8th. Carts would be delivered, hopefully, during the month of March, with service starting around April 1. Similarly, there would be a second process further down the line with carts being delivered in September. And then finally, the swap-out of our existing carts, as I alluded to before, will happen before the end of 2028. We did not prioritize this because the carts that are in the community right now are in decent shape, and they're performing. Obviously, if somebody has an issue with the cart, we'll get it replaced sooner. But if they're functioning properly, we did not prioritize that. Carts are 96-gallon solid waste, 96-gallon recycling. You see a small mock-up, if you will, of what the carts look like. Additional transition periods will be planned for, but we don't have hard dates on those yet. And, again, some people aren't going to love a 96-gallon container. They will want a 65-gallon container. We will be offering a swap-out period in early 2028, so that those residents who just don't love that 96-gallon container, or maybe they don't need it, can swap to something smaller if they prefer it. And that's it, short and sweet. Obviously, if you have any questions, we're happy to help you. They're all mentioned for their buttons. Thank you, Ms. And we do have waste management representatives here who can assist if you stump me. Thank you, Ms. Morris. And first, before I turn it over to my colleagues, I want to say this took an inordinate amount of time. And as I said to you, when we met and have been intimately involved with you, all things trash, I want to really thank you and your team for all the work that you put into this, because I think it brings us a choice, which our residents haven't had in a long time. So I'm going to turn it over to Council Member Anderson and then Council Member Weinstein. You're first. I just thought the initial question, I'm sure I'll think of more, so I reserve the right to come back, but I'm sure you all will have great questions. If a resident – so I'm finally empty nest and can get away with one single kitchen-sized blue bag a week. And I'm going to go up to a 96-gallon can. Only if you choose to – And there are many retirees that also don't have to generate a lot of garbage. So the pay as you throw is also economical. It also encourages recycling so that you get less garbage. If – so you – one of your final statements was that you can – there can be 96 gallons for both types, but you can request a lower size. Do you get a commensure at lower rate if you have a lower size? No, there is not a reduction in rate. You're going to be producing less garbage and less garbage will be taken. There is not a reduction in rate. That said, you're not being forced to move to carts. If you are comfortable with blue bags and that meets both your aesthetic and financial needs, you can stay with blue bags. But if you're going to be tipping less garbage from a smaller can, why wouldn't you get a lower rate for it? That's just not the way that the industry pursues that. Okay. Is that it for now? For now. Council Member Reinstein, then Council Member Andreessen. Thank you very much. I appreciate the presentation and the work on the contract. As I've said to you and to the administration, is that I think this contract has everything that we are looking for in terms of the options. I particularly appreciate the self-select option that is now before us. I have some questions for the administration, for our city, and then also maybe for WM as well. We'll start with in terms of, and you've laid out that our request for MSW to do the research and prepare a proposal for us, right, was put on hold. And if we ask them to go back and to continue, then they will do their work and prepare the RSP or RFSP. I want to begin with, though, is that the initial request by the council and the discussion as to seeking MSW to do the work, what, in your view, changed from why that request was made to going forward with the negotiation and coming up with the proposal that will be before us later? I'm not sure that anything changed. Waste management came to us with a proposal that we had not heard before for self-selection. And honestly, I don't know of any community in South Florida that's offering that kind of flexibility. When we brought the proposal back to administration, we kicked it around, and the decision was to pursue the discussions with waste management, see if we could conclude a deal that was credible and valuable to the city. And if we could, we would bring it to the council. But from the beginning, I was, I'm always the bad guy, I was the one saying we have to put a time limit on this because if we push it out too far, we closed the door on our opportunity to go to bid. So we kept MSW working up until the first week of October. And at that point, we put them on hold because we felt like we were close to a credible deal. That said, I did have a conversation with them yesterday just to verify again that if we reactivate them, we can still meet our timelines because we didn't want to arbitrarily preclude your ability to make the decision. Thank you. And I appreciate that answer. And just to clarify, though, is that I haven't understood there to be any change in why we requested, again, the work by MSW to begin with as well as it to be put out to bid, despite the fact that WM has put before us maybe everything that we want. And that's to the administration. You also actually touched on my other question, and that is the self-select option. You know, I think as long as I've been on this council and probably a long time before that, there has always been a question, why can't the residents self-select, especially because we know that there are communities that have the carts, right? Now, those were entire communities. And I remember that having this discussion at some point before, and I think from the dais, is that there was some talk that, and maybe it was strategic planning. I don't remember where we had the discussion. But the discussion was that, well, there could be some opportunity for particular communities. Correct. Right, because of the way that the work was done is that it would be easier to do an entire community instead of neighbor-to-neighbor. And maybe it doesn't matter, but I'm just curious as to what changed. Why haven't we had this option all along, or why, without having to now decide on an entirely new contract, we weren't just giving our residents the self-select option? We had talked with Waste Management in the past about opportunities to pilot or to expand carts. And you're correct. It had always been tied to communities. And at one point, Waste Management had suggested specific communities that they would be interested in converting. And frankly, it was a small enough number that we didn't feel like it was worth the lift. That said, individual selection had not been proposed in the past. When Waste Management came to us, and Lisa or Barbara, please feel free to correct me if I get this wrong, their comments were that they wanted to continue their relationship with plantation, and they had reviewed their service, and they felt that they could effectively offer this option. Now, I am sure they would be much happier if we could convert entire communities, because that creates a large enough mass that you could then take advantage of moving away from rear-end loaders and moving to ASL trucks, and that's where the economy is on their side. But again, at this point, they were able to offer us an individual option. As I understand it, the plan is, until we reach a point where we have, shall we say, critical mass in one area, they would be using a rear-end loader with a cart chipper on it. So it would still be a two-man crew, but they would be able to accommodate either type of collection. Which I think then the answer is, we don't really, it just only was offered now. It wasn't offered before. It maybe could have been offered before, but it wasn't offered. Okay. I'm going to leave it at that so other people can speak. I just want one thing, Council President, is that I do have some other thoughts in terms of the fact that the contract is on the agenda for later. I'll be getting to that at the end. And I also want to just say for the record, I did clarify with Mr. Nunamaker that this is being recorded. I know that there were a number of residents that were very concerned that they weren't able to make it tonight because of flooding in various situations. They're watching. And because it's being recorded and that there wasn't going to be community discussion anyway, I just want to put that on. We're going to address that. Thank you very much. Council Member Andrea. Thank you, President Horland. Again, thank you and the rest of the staff, Mr. Nunamaker, Mr. Thompson, for the heavy lift. I know this has been very time-consuming, and I appreciate the time you took to meet with me and even the follow-up we've done. There are some things I'll wait until we get to the agenda item one. But going to your presentation, it's my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, that we will not be able to use any ASL trucks now if we move to this self-selection option because you won't have entire communities. Well, we do have some ASL trucks already on the road. Remember, we do have plantation acres, Hawks Landing, Melaleuca Isles, Lago Largo that are already ASL. So we do have some ASL routes on the road. That said, you probably won't see implementation of ASL on an expanded scale in the self-selection areas until you start to meet critical mass. So are we not offering self-selection to those areas? Those areas are already on carts. So they, okay, I did not know that. And again, if you go back and you look at our community survey, the residents who were serviced by carts had something like a 98% satisfaction. Okay, I just wasn't aware. So those four areas will not be touched. Those residents will not have the opportunity to use bags. No. Okay, I was not, I never discussed that during our meeting. Okay. Also, well, the rest of, a lot of my questions have to do with the contract. But the CPI, I will discuss that. So I know you said our current contract is 5%. Correct. And now waste management is willing to go to 4%, but I still wasn't excited about that. Why isn't the CPI adjustment based on what the average CPI is for all urban consumers based on the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau and Labor Statistics? I'm not going to lie to you. We did push, but the 4% flat increase is what we were able to get agreed to. So? So it's not a cap as it is currently. Currently, it's 5%, or if the CPI is less, it would be less than that. Under this agreement, it would be a flat 4% for the term of the agreement, 4% a year for the term of the agreement. So I will reserve the rest of my comments for when we get to item 1 on the agenda tonight. But I will tell you that, one, I'm not prepared to vote on this tonight. I think Council Member Reinstein was also alluding to, you know, the residents would like more time to have more input as well. And many could not be here tonight. And, frankly, I'm not okay with the contract as is. But, again, I'll reserve the rest of my comments for when we touch upon item 1. Thank you. Mayor, before I get you in there, let me just go ahead and start with that. If we have a consensus, and then we can discuss it formally at the Council meeting, but if we have a consensus right now that we want to wait on the contract, I think that the last moment to do that will be the 18th so that those other residents can participate. Then what we will do this evening is we will go through the workshop, and then those residents that are here tonight, because you've been invited here to listen to this workshop and comment, if you would like to provide public comment because we want to hear from you, we will allow that to happen during open public comment. Okay, so some of you have signed up forms. If you want to talk about this, then you can do it then. Because what happens if we defer the item to the 18th, you wouldn't have that opportunity. So I just want to make it clear. So do we have a consensus? No, I would not. Remove it to the 18th. I would not like to do that. I would like to wait so that we can still discuss item number one, and then if we want to make a motion after that discussion and after hearing the public who signed up for item number one, that would be my preference. But typically if we defer, there is no public comment. Exactly. That's why I said I wouldn't make the motion until we're at the end of that discussion. Point of order, Council President. Instead of deferring it, there could be a motion to table it after the discussion had already taken takes place. So if we leave it on the agenda, have the discussion. Would you prefer to do that? Yes. Okay, then we can do that. All right. But I think we're heading toward tabling it to the 18th. All right. Just so we're clear with that. Mayor, if you want to go ahead and make some comments, and then I'm going to jump in. A few things. First, Council Member Anderson's question about 65 gallon and 96 gallon, and you said that's the way it's – the word you mean is that's the industry standard. Yes, sir. That's SOP for all trash things. Seems to be, yes, sir. Yeah, it's the same size. It doesn't matter about the size. Price is the same. Okay. You all know, like you said, it's a very passionate thing. It's 50-50 in a lot of ways, and half of the people who have blue bags would like to convert to carts, and it was 3% of the people with carts would like blue bags, I think was what the numbers were. Something like that, yeah. From the survey. And to your question, Council Member Reinstein, about why now, I think the industry has been such that other vendors have shown up, and waste management has been driven to want to keep us very badly. They want to keep plantation. And to do that, they want to keep residential – if we make residential happy, that's important to waste management. And so it came from them. It didn't come from us. And CPI, you're right about that. CPI was something as part of the give and take. I think, Council Member Andrea, and you can renegotiate it, and we can talk about it. But I think you get the – you give things, and you take things. And that was in that. That's all I got. Thank you, Mayor. And I think, to your point, that was one of the sticking points. There's a lot in this contract. And, again, when you and I sat down – and I'll say it again publicly – you were able to work a lot of concessions in that. And in light of what happened with the election last night in Amendment 3, I want to impress upon everyone just how important that $300,000 that comes out of the general fund will now be covered. That's not something to be taken lightly. And we know that – you're right. Industry is obviously looking at this. There's a lot that is at stake with the SWA. There's going to be changes. We don't know what that landscape is going to look like yet. So I want to say a couple of things. Why did we end up here? We ended up here because when we signed to the last extension and we've had these discussions with waste management publicly and privately, level of service dropped off. And I think that was quite disappointing to all of us. And we said at strategic planning, we wanted to go out to bid. So I appreciate that coming back with this. And I appreciate, again, you and the team working on all these concessions. My overriding concern is always going to be this sounds great. I think it gives our residents the options that we've never had. It's a generational change for the City of Plantation. Is level of service going to be maintained? And I know there will be some bumps in the road initially as we all adjust to this. But I want to make sure that WN is not overpromising. I will tell you that we have already started to implement some changes. In the past, one of the things that happened after we had the service difficulties in 23-24 was we developed a system whereby I got a notification towards the end of the day so that if there was potentially an issue, we had time to get social media or Nextdoor or those tools out so we could notify residents. During our discussions, and we've already implemented it, we've now gone to a reporting system where I get a pretty detailed report three times a day telling me what's going on there. The report includes the information on which routes are running, staffing on those routes, as well as whether or not they're on time or they're behind schedule or whether they've actually completed their service. So we're getting much more detail there now than we were in the past. And truthfully, I think that's a huge benefit to the city because now you have insight as to what is actually occurring in your routes. So as waste management is to come to us and say we feel like we need to make a change in routes, we actually have the empirical data to look at and say, yeah, you're right. This guy's running late every day. There's got to change here. And that information will be helpful to you down the line in 2033 when you definitely will be going to bid. So I think that's very helpful. One of the other things that we've already implemented is a monthly ops meeting. And we've been holding the meeting at Public Works. Poor Matt is getting sick and tired of seeing my car pull into his parking lot. But we've been holding the meeting at Public Works. Waste management sends their management team. We normally have the district manager, our route supervisor, some other representatives from the company. And we work through. These are the service issues we've had over the last month. These are the things we need to talk about. This is what we need to focus on. So it's early, but we've started to try and improve that chain of communication. Matt's team has also, and I'll give him credit, they have stepped up their game in terms of when complaints come to the city, for instance, missed pickups, missed whatever. Noting when the call comes in, when it's reported to waste management, and when it's cleared. Because there are provisions in our contract as to when those things happen. Similarly, we're doing similar things on damage reports. So we've really sort of tightened up that piece. And at the end of the day, I think that's going to help ensure that we're meeting the level of service that you want to see. At the end of the day, that's up to them. But we are trying to take the steps to be a good partner and make sure that we're facilitating those things. Well, and I think another important part of that is, again, when we're talking about Amendment 3 and streamlining operations, when we start to take a look at everything, for many reasons, I think being able to switch the billing to waste management and not having that appear on the water bill, we don't have to worry about that. We don't have to worry about the bad debt. But I like the portal so people don't have to take to Facebook to say, you know what, is my truck coming today and was it missed? So I think that it empowers the residents more and takes some of that away from what currently you and Mr. Thompson are handling. So I think there's a lot of positives, and I know that this was a very, again, we've said it, a heavy lift. I just continue, you know, to be concerned about the execution. But I put out a post on Facebook the other day to let people know what we were going to be doing tonight and about the vote. We've received many emails, and it's been interesting because we know how passionate people are. I happen to personally like my blue bags. My neighbor wants a cart. He's been wanting a cart for and doesn't understand that I've been sitting here for eight years, and he hasn't been able to get his cart. So you have somebody like that who's very excited about this, but it's really been interesting because most of the majority of the people that have contacted me this week and commented on my post want their blue bags. So, you know, I think that when we tend to look at that, it provides that option, and it's not perfect, but it provides the option for the people in the city who feel strongly either way. And I think providing the option is really important, but putting my city hat on, I think the most important pieces are the fact that we're starting to properly allocate some of our expenditures towards the source. Right now, we're collecting for recyclables processing through the general fund. We're collecting for household hazardous waste in SWA, and there are people who pay property taxes, commercial companies that don't have access to those services. They really belong being allocated towards that solid waste piece. So the more that we can sort of true that up and garner those costs and attribute them to a cost center, get them out of the general fund, you're going to have enough to try and cover in the general fund. It's better for the city long run because you're going to be in a healthier financial position. And I'd love to see that, you know, at the point the SWA maybe drops off and becomes a non-ad valorem assessment, maybe at that point you have enough funding and that franchise fee to allocate some funds towards public works and administration to defray some of the costs involved in contract administration. Again, like I said, Matt's team's really stepped up their game, but it takes a significant amount of employee time. I think most municipalities have an employee dedicated to this, which we don't. And in many cases, that employee is in the franchise agreement. Right, and it's typically in the franchise agreement, so I think that's important to note. Ms. Morris, before we start to wrap things up, can you just go over one more time, because I want residents to also be clear that they have the opt-in. It's a one-time opt-in. Yes. So we're not going to have people flopping back and forth between. It is a one-time opt-in. Again, the initial agreement provides for two periods. The first opt-in period would end in early January. Their carts would be delivered for service to begin around April 1st. Similarly, the next opt-in period would trail behind, and that service would begin around September. Again, we have also agreed that new customers will default carts. Okay. Council members, any further questions on the workshop? I know we're going to get to the contract during the... Nothing? All right. Ms. Morris, we appreciate everything this evening. We will go ahead and have a further discussion. So just, again, so the public's clear, we're going to leave the item on the consent agenda. We will pull it so that we can have the discussion. You can come up and comment, and then we will probably, more than likely, defer that vote until the 18th. Okay. If there are no other further comments, we will conclude the workshop and convene the City Council meeting in just about 11 minutes.