Posted: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 12:00 am
Albany officials are looking into resuming the street sweeping program with city employees rather than under contract with a private company.
Last week the city announced it had rejected two bids as too high and had temporarily suspending cleaning the streets while it considered calling for new bids on a reduced sweeping schedule. Streets have not been cleaned since the contract with Allied Waste of Albany and Lebanon expired in June.
The issue came up briefly during Monday's city council meeting, and some councilors said they would rather not reduce the sweeping program.
Public Works Director Diane Dennis said it may be more cost effective to run the program with city employees and she was looking into this.
She said the city was monitoring how much debris was piling up since the sweeping stopped in order to answer whether service can really be reduced.
Councilman Floyd Collins said it's also a question of appearance.
Councilor Sharon Konopa said she did not want to see sweeping cut back. If the city has to buy another sweeper in addition to the one it already owns, she wondered it if could be a "quieter one."
Albany contracted for street sweeping for more than 20 years, and streets with curbs and gutters were swept once a month.
By contrast, Lebanon and Corvallis run sweeping programs with city employees.
Democrat-Herald