For most city households,
residential waste disposal is one of those services we don’t think much about—until we no longer have it.
The City of Spur has been soliciting proposals recently for municipal garbage service, after the current provider’s request for a fuel factor rate increase did not reach a resolution. The city was notified by Lubbock-based SOS Waste Services that their services to Spur customers would be discontinued as of October 31.
City customers themselves started to learn of the pending change only when SOS Waste mailed cancellation notices to approximately 50-60 private Dickens County customers outside the city limits. SOS currently services about 300 City of Spur customers with alley dumpsters.
Reasons for the company’s decisions are unclear.
SOS operations manager Gary Regner attended the Spur city council meeting of July 14 to explain the need for an increase in compensation, to comply with a contract he said had been in effect with the city for some years. According to Spur mayor Louise Jones, council tabled the matter in order to study the request fully and to locate such a contract. Regner did not return to subsequent council meetings for which he was included on the agenda, according to Jones, and did not respond to a counterproposal submitted by city secretary Ashley Carothers on behalf of the city.
“For us, it has been a pleasure serving the city of Spur,” Regner told The Texas Spur on Monday. “Our decision was based on economics.”
Regner said that a contract between SOS and the City of Spur under an earlier city administration about 2015 contained a clause providing for a cost-of-living adjustment in service rates.
City staff were unable to locate such a contract, Jones said, and requests for SOS staff to provide a copy have gone unanswered.
Regner said that he had communicated to city staff “at the end of June” that they were in violation of the contract. Jones and Carothers said that Regner’s request for an increase arrived a day or two before the July city council meeting, without sufficient time for staff and council to consider it with care, but still have had no contract document to review.
Regner said that SOS had recently purchased a new garbage truck for Spur and also had a driver based in Spur, but that driver was no longer employed. Regner said he had been looking for ways to cover the route.
“I don’t think I can do this economically,” he said regarding the Spur route.
SOS Waste continues to serve customers in the city of Dickens, and in the Crosbyton area, Regner confirmed.
Carothers is reviewing proposals from bidders and also reaching out to other West Texas cities of similar size for comparative information.
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