Beiseker residents will soon see a newer garbage truck lurching its way along the village's streets every Friday morning.
According to Village of Beiseker Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Heather Leslie, at the Feb. 14 Village council meeting, councillors approved the purchase of a used garbage truck from Prince Edward Island. The truck costs $78,500 and will come with an automated side-loader pick-up system.
“We found a good deal on a used garbage truck that will allow for bins to be picked up automatically with an arm on the vehicle, rather than having our public works employees deal with messy, unbagged, and heavy garbage,” she said.
“It will save them a lot of anguish when it comes to heavy garbage that isn’t bagged properly.”
According to the Feb. 14 council meeting minutes, the vehicle is a 2011 International WorkStar garbage truck. The Village will pay for the truck through a four-year bank loan, and will list its current garbage truck for sale for best offer.
Another benefit of the new addition, according to Leslie, is that it will allow the Village to start doing front-yard, street-level pick-up. Up until now, she said most of the village's garbage has been picked up from alleyways, which results in wear-and-tear on both the Village's garbage truck and the alleys themselves.
The Village is also purchasing 64 new garbage bins for residents, according to the Feb. 14 meeting minutes, at a cost of just under $35,000.
“It was a win-win situation. And as one resident said, it moves us into the 21st century,” Leslie said.
Garbage pick-up is on Friday mornings in Beiseker – a schedule Leslie said will remain.
She said the Village is asking residents to make sure their garbage is properly bagged before placing it into the bins.
“We’re picking up the contents of the bins – not any extra garbage,” she said, adding if residents have too much garbage to fit into their bin, they’ll have to take it either to a transfer site or wait until the following week.
New website
A shinier garbage truck won't be the Village of Beiseker's only new infrastructure introduced this year.
According to Leslie, the Village is also revamping its website – Beiseker.com – at a cost of under $1,000.
She said resident Al Metzger is assisting with the revamp of the municipality's website.
“It’s just to streamline it a little bit and make sure it’s easier to navigate,” she said. “We have a local person who is doing the work for us and we just thought it was a good time to get at that.”
Leslie added she's not sure how long it has been since the Village of Beiseker last updated its website, but said the upgraded web page should be completed by the early summer.
Asked if it will have any new features, she said the goal is more so to make it easier for people to navigate the current website and make it more functional and inviting.”
“It’s all about attracting new residents and businesses to the website,” she said. “[We want better] functionality for the current people who use it.”
