Background: Minnesota Statutes chapter 115A authorizes cities, towns, and counties to organize the collection of solid waste within their jurisdiction. A local government that is interested in organizing collection and that has more than one licensed collector must negotiate exclusively with those collectors for a period of 60 days, and any resulting agreement must be for a period of three to seven years. If a local government does not have more than one licensed collector, then prior to implementing a particular solid waste collection method, the local government must establish a committee to identify and evaluate potential collection methods.
Section 1 updates statutory cross references to reflect substantive changes made in the bill.
Section 2 changes various statutory references from “organized collection” to “solid waste collection,” authorizing unorganized collection to be considered. The bill makes similar conforming changes in other sections.
Section 3 provides that when a local government convenes a committee to examine solid waste collection options, the committee must include in its analysis an examination of the existing system of collection. This section also allows the committee’s evaluation to include an examination of potential collection methods’ impact on residential subscribers’ ability to have choices with respect to desired level of service and costs.
Section 4 makes minor conforming changes.
Section 5 changes the period during which local governments are required to negotiate with licensed collectors to “at least 60 days” from the current “60 days.” This section also changes the length of the resulting initial collection agreement to “seven” years from the current “three to seven years.”
Section 6 requires that prior to the negotiations a local government is required to conduct exclusively with licensed collectors, the collectors and elected officials of the local government must meet and confer on waste collection issues.
Section 7 prohibits an organized collection agreement from requiring a participating licensed collector to bear any liability for damages caused by any other participating licensed collector.
Section 8 updates a statutory cross reference to reflect substantive changes made in the bill.
Section 9 provides an effective date of January 1, 2019.
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