A report on the County's Regional Waste Management initiative heads to LaSalle town council for a vote Tuesday evening.
The County of Essex by-law would transfer all power of the lower-tier municipalities to the County with respect to the collection of waste and the delivery of such waste.
The new change would see bi-weekly garbage collection, weekly organic collection, bi-weekly leaf and yard waste collection, and monthly white goods collection.
LaSalle Mayor Crystal Meloche says council still has many unanswered questions.
"We've seen some mixed information about the service level that we will have. The opportunity to increase if we wanted to a pick-up around let's say holidays or other things. There's just so many unanswered questions about that and like I said at this point in time we're not even sure if we uplevel this to the county level if we're going to see any sort of savings."
She says some LaSalle residents have made their stance clear on the issue.
"I've heard loud and clear from many of our residents that they're extremely happy with the service we offer currently, so I'm not sure right now if saying we may have a savings is worth us making that move."
Meloche says it's very difficult to vote on an initiative like this when it's done at a regional level.
"Part of me feels like it's not fair to force municipalities into something like this if they're not prepared for it or if they're happy with the service they have. I find these things to be a little harder to handle because you know you're working with six other municipalities but at the same time, if there's two or three who are completely against it, like you said Essex unanimously voted against it, I do have an issue with trying to force people into that county level model."
She says she would like to keep waste management as a LaSalle service.
"I appreciate what work the county has done and they've done a ton of work on this initiative, but I'm just not getting all the answers I need at this time to agree to move it to the county level. Like I said, no matter what we're going to have to make changes in the Town of LaSalle in the coming years, and our residents are going to have to eventually understand that those are changes are going to be needed to extend that lifespan of that landfill."
Meloche says their current contract expires 2026 and she says if by chance it remains a LaSalle service, the regional organics pick-up program will have been in place for a year, so they will then have a better understanding of how that program will work.
LaSalle council meets Tuesday evening at 6 p.m.
Amherstburg council will vote on the proposed change Monday evening.
Approval is being sought by all municipalities now, so that in the case of approval and uploading, a tender can be issued in late fall of 2023, to allow for a 2025 contract start.
The by-law requires at least four of the seven local municipalities, comprising at least 50 per cent of the electors in the County pass resolutions in support of the change.
So far, the Town of Tecumseh and the Municipality of Leamington approved the by-law change, however the Town of Essex council unanimously opposed the change during their meeting last week.
-With files from AM800's Meagan Delaurier