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The City Council and its sanitation woes have been dominating the news all this week.  But in the mediums term, the mayor is hoping that when the BML contract expires on January of next year, his worries will decrease because the council will take over the responsibilities for keeping the streets clean.  Today, in a move towards that, they got 3 garbage compactor dump trucks, as a donation from the Taiwanese Government.

Taiwanese Ambassador Benjamin Ho officially handed the trucks over today, and 7News attended that ceremony. Here's what the mayor told us about how it will be used:

Darrell Bradley - Mayor, City Hall

"We expect that we will be able fully assume these responsibilities immediately upon the expiration of the contract which is January of 2015. I had indicated we had formed a sub-committee which had councilors and technical staff on there, we've put in place mechanism to ensure we are able to absorb the function. The handing over ceremony today of these 3 compacter garbage trucks increases our capacity to deal with that. We are talking today about how we are going to deal with hotspots, I've had extended meetings about that and about dealing with the sludge and different things like that. We have spoken about requiring residence to maintain in front of their yard. We have spoken about the city appropriating cemetery functions and park functions, so we expect come January 2015, we will quite comfortably move into a situation where we can assume responsibility for these things and we have been planning, its again unfortunate to unfold this way but these discussions are sometimes necessary because it makes us recognize how serious and daunting these challenges are."

Daniel Ortiz

"What are the value of these compacter trucks, including the cost of getting it here?"

Darrell Bradley

"It's a figure exceeding 200,000 dollars. The shipment cost were quite considerable, each of the compacter garbage trucks were retro fitted, tested, upgraded, they went through everything before they left Taiwan. Again this is a year in motion that lets you think how long we have been thinking about appropriating some of these functions, we're expecting other donations of street sweepers. One of the things the prime minister indicated is that he is prepared to assist the municipality in increasing its equipment cost." 

City Councilor Eric Chang is credited with making contact with the Government of Taiwan for these trucks. We tried to ask him about it, but since the Citizen Kim passport scandal, he's not granted any interview opportunities to the press. He declined once again and refused to entertain any questions.