The Editor,
Re. "City bills are due soon for water, sewer" (The Tri-City News, March 8).
Thank you for publishing the utilities bills for the Tri-Cities.
I note that Coquitlam's bill for single-family residential garbage and recycling is about double ($349) that of Port Coquitlam's ($176) and about 90% higher than Port Moody's ($192).
A few years ago, Coquitlam had a garbage contractor that constantly did a half-baked job and no one in city hall seemed to be able to either get the contractor to do the job right or cancel the contract.
Now we have a costly gold-plated service. We have household, recycling and garden trimmings picked up every week. The household and recycling could easily be picked up every other week. Now that garden trimmings have kitchen greens and can have meat and bones, they should be picked up every week but most folks I know keep the meat and bones in the freezer until pickup day anyway, so this could also be on a two-week cycle.
I don't know who is responsible for organizing these contracts but it seems to me some better oversight is required. If Port Coquitlam can do the job at half price using city employees, we are not well served in Coquitlam.
W. Leipert, Coquitlam
