Karnes City residents will soon have a different company in charge of picking up their trash, according to an announcement made by a Waste Management representative at Karnes City’s June 26 council meeting.

Fred Medrano told council straight out his company would not seek or offer a renewal of their contract. Waste Management simply is pulling back and will no longer be offering their services this far away from their base of operations in San Antonio, he said.

"There’s an accumulation of things that have gone astray," he said. "As you well know, there’s a big brush issue. We’ve taken a look at what recently occurred here and … we did not meet the standards of the city."

Medrano said Waste Management will deliver on their promise to pick up all of Karnes City’s brush and large trash before their contract expires September 30.

Mayor Don Tymrak admitted surprise at the decision.

"I really expected you guys to come back with a proposal to elevate base costs," he said.

Medrano went on to explain how Waste Management is overextended in some areas and how Karnes City is one of the areas that exist right on the border of their current coverage area.

"This is about as far out as we go," he explained. "It’s very far from a landfill."

Turnaround time for a garbage truck filled with 35 cubic yards of material is around 90 minutes, making brush pickup an especially difficult task, Medrano said. Combined with ever-increasing fuel prices, the operation’s cost effectiveness came into question.

Medrano wasn’t able to elaborate to Tymrak’s satisfaction regarding the specific reasons the decision was made. Tymrak wanted to know why Waste Management didn’t offer an option that would simply increase costs, but Medrano said the decision was made above his head and that he wasn’t privy to the details.

Tymrak then said he wondered if the garbage collector hadn’t intentionally been offering Karnes City poor service in the hopes its residents would be glad to see the departure of Waste Management.

He issued an order to Medrano and sent back a message to Waste Management.

"Get the brush picked up and don’t take until this September or I’m sure we’ve got some lawyers in this city that would love to help us out," he told Medrano.

Aside from the sour news from Waste Management, Karnes City did get to hear some potentially positive news from a business that wants to start operating in the area.

Guadalupe Valley Electric Co. is teaming up with local electric provider Karnes Electric Co-Op to bring high-speed wireless Internet access to the area. They came to see council members about getting permission to use their water tower as a place to mount equipment.

GVEC would take the place of the now-bankrupt Wireless Frontier and will be offering similar Internet access technology. The difference will be that GVEC is primarily an electric provider and already has an established Internet presence in the county.

Their system is the backbone for karnesec.net, the dial-up Internet service provided by Karnes Electric Cooperative.

Pricing for the high-speed wireless service varies widely depending on the speed a consumer wishes to pay for. The cost for the 512-kbps speed "essential" package comes out to $44.95 a month including equipment rental and requires an initial $150 installation fee.

Council members voted to allow GVEC to use their water tower to mount equipment on the condition they pay for their own electricity. Council member Leroy Skloss abstained from voting.

Both the download and upload speeds on the essential package will be at about 512-kbps, which is about 20 times as fast as most dial-up connections can achieve in Karnes County.

Wireless Internet does not require a telephone line to operate. Instead, it transmits data via radio waves using equipment installed on the exterior of a home or business.