Barring an unforeseen snag, it looks like Republic Services will retain the trash pickup contract in Mt. Carmel. At Monday night’s city council meeting, two bids were opened for the three-year contract. Republic’s bid for residential pickup was $12.25 a month the first year, $12.62 the second year, and $13 the third year of the pact. The other bid from Advanced Disposal was considerably higher coming in at $22.51 the first year, $23.16 the second, and $23.85 the third. That’s more than $10 a month than the Republic bid. The council took the bids under advisement until a recessed meeting next Monday at 4:00 at City Hall.

Another topic to be finished at the recessed meeting is computer upgrades for the Mt. Carmel Police Department Chief Ryan Turner said the city is looking to partner with Wabash County and the Olney Police Department, and Richland County Sheriff’s Department in the major upgrade. Turner said the current system locally is 20 years old and can’t be updated any longer and in fact hasn’t been updated in 5 years. The city’s price tag for the upgrade of the reporting system is over $47,000. To take advantage of that price point, a decision must be made by June 28th and that fact necessitated the topic to be continued until the recessed meeting next Monday.