By CHRISTINE BOATWRIGHT / Staff Writer

CHELSEA – The Chelsea City Council approved a resolution to cancel a public hearing relating to the bid for residential garbage collection during the Jan. 18 council meeting.

“We were going to open it up in a different way so that different garbage collection companies could come in, (and the bid would) not be exclusive, but this will let us allow a franchise exclusive to one company,” Chelsea Mayor Earl Niven said. “This way, we’ll get a much cheaper price. This is for garbage pick-up, as well as recyclables.”

Councilmember Juanita Champion said the hearing was scheduled to ask citizens if they wanted an exclusive or non-exclusive franchise. When the council reviewed the repercussions of a non-exclusive franchise, however, it decided an exclusive franchise was in the best interest of the city.

“Not had a single person has disagreed with us. It’s been very positive, and we’ve been trying to get the word out to people, asking how they feel about it,” Champion said. “I think whenever we can save money (for citizens) in this day and age, people are grateful.”

On top of saving money, the city council is responding to the community’s call for more recycling and care for the city’s environment.

“The main reason we’re doing this is to have the opportunity for people to recycle, just like we had the recycling day a few weeks ago,” Niven said. “We have a great interest in Chelsea for recycling. We have a lot of people who are concerned about the environment, so that’s why we’re having the recycling program.”

The recycling day – Electronic Recycling Day – took place on Jan. 8 at Chelsea’s City Hall. Citizens were encouraged to bring used electronics, including computers, and appliances, such as refrigerators, washers and dryers.

“We chose a Saturday after Christmas, because we felt that people would get a lot of electronics for Christmas,” Champion said. “This is something we’ve been wanting to do, because we feel that the citizens needed an outlet for this.”

The city collected 8,560 pounds of electronics to recycle as a result.

In response to the citizens’ desire to recycle and care for the community, Nivens said that Chelsea’s new slogan is “clean and green.”

“We want our city to be the cleanest and greenest in Shelby County,” he said.