Meeting scheduled to hear Lake City sanitation concerns

LAKE CITY, S.C. ? Lake City residents and business owners will have a chance to voice their sanitation concerns at a special town hall meeting Monday.

The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. at the Lake City Senior Center, and representatives from the city and American Waste Systems will be available to answer questions.

According to Lake City Administrator Shawn Bell, the city started receiving sanitation services from American Waste Systems on July 1, 2016. Before that, the city provided sanitation services.

"So when this started July 1 of 2016 with the private contract, I would say we were all expecting a transition period, and it definitely has," Bell said. "There's been some hiccups and things, and so the community has some concerns. So we want to make sure we have an outlet for our citizens and business owners to voice their concerns and also ask questions."

One of the major changes that came with the city no longer providing sanitation services and switching to American Waste Systems was the number of times residential and commercial services were offered a week. Services went from twice a week to once a week.

"So I think AWS gets unfairly blamed for a lot of that. And that wasn't their decision," Bell said. "That was a council decision. With that being said, I would say service has probably not been up to par, especially at this point. By March 1, I think we would've expected service to be better by this point."

When the city provided trash services, dumpsters were dumped almost every day, despite how many times a business was paying for dumping.

"Now that a private contractor is doing it, if you're paying for once-a-week service, they're getting once-a-week service," Bell said.

There have also been issues of illegal dumping, Bell said. Some dumpsters are getting filled faster than they should because of illegal dumping.

"Now, we're looking at alternative measures like locking devices, encouraging businesses to install like a corral," Bell said.

David B. King, vice president and chief operating officer of American Waste Systems, is scheduled to attend the town hall meeting Monday.

"I will be on hand Monday night to assist the mayor and council in answering any technical question citizens may have regarding the collection schedule and recycling service," King said.

American Waste Systems is based in Marion and provides services in several other cities in South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.

Lake City Mayor Lovith Anderson will moderate Monday's meeting.