NORTH BAY -- Councillors in North Bay voted on a key issue this week concerning a city-owned landfill site that has been run by a contractor since opening nearly 27 years ago.

Following an 8-3 vote Tuesday, that's set to change in 2022.

“We challenge our staff constantly to look at ways of saving the taxpayers money and for operations,” said councillor Mac Bain, who voted in favour of the city taking over the landfill operations. “Staff came back with a proposal that said they could operate the landfill, get better compaction rate than we presently have that will extend the life of the landfill.”

The issue first came to council Feb. 23 with a report from Karin Pratte, a senior environment and facilities engineer with the city. It estimated moving landfill operations in-house would save the city $180,000, with the savings going back to landfill reserves.

However, the vote was not unanimous with councillors Mark King, Marcus Tignanelli and George Maroosis voting against the motion.

“When you take a look at the math that was presented to us, it doesn’t add up quite frankly, so I was unhappy with that,” said Maroosis.

Not apples to apples

“I’m also unhappy with the fact that having learned that we could have extended the contract and had a full RFP and allowed our staff to be one of the bidders so we could have compared apples to apples. That didn’t happen and I think it sends a very poor message to the private sector.”

The change, scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, 2022, does come with a price tag of nearly $2 million for new equipment the city will need to purchase. That fact caused conflicting opinions around the table.

“I don’t buy it, I don’t buy the math,” said Maroosis. “It doesn’t add up when you consider all the capital investments and the depreciation on equipment.”

While a big change, Bain said people won’t even notice.

“As far as the operation, the hours are going to remain the same. The customers won’t see a difference when they go to the landfill. The major differences is that we’re going to see is doing much more compaction,” he said, mentioning that the first person that customers see right now is already city staff.

The goal is the change will help extend the life of the landfill and set the city up financially for a possible expansion or a new site in the years to come.