May 8, 2008 By Josh Krysak 2 min read

Uniontown City Council will hold a special meeting Monday to consider awarding a contract for garbage collection in the city. Council voted unanimously to table the awarding of a contract after opening three sealed bids at its meeting Tuesday.

While it appeared that Fayette Waste of Uniontown submitted the lowest bid, council voted to table the decision until council members can review the bids at length and determine which commercial rates and residential rates are most cost-effective.

Fayette Waste submitted a bid of $11.42 per month per household for unlimited residential collection, while Violia Environmental Services of McClellandtown submitted an $11.99 bid for per household waste collection. Waste Management of Moon Township submitted a bid of $19.15 for monthly residential collection service.

Each company also submitted sliding scales based on Dumpster size and monthly pickups for businesses in Uniontown.

With dozens of figures submitted by each company for commercial collection, council decided to crunch the numbers before awarding the contract. The move is aimed at eliminating the cost of operating the sanitation department. Operating costs were projected at $877,254 and revenue at $854,400, leaving a deficit of $22,854, according to this year’s budget.

The bid openings come two weeks after workers scrambled to help pick up uncollected garbage throughout the city.

Mayor Ed Fike said the garbage was uncollected because of a shortage of manpower in the 10-man sanitation department after one worker resigned, two were off because of illness and another worker was off because of an injury. Fike said he used three employees from his personal trucking business and city employees from the sewer, street and fire departments have been working to help the sanitation department get caught up.