As 2024 turns to 2025 in the next few days, the city of Elgin prepares to change waste haulers, moving on from a 20+ year contract with Waste Management (WM) to a new contract with Lakeshore Recycling Services (LRS).This is the final ep...

The Elgin Sustainability Commission met on Tuesday, December 10th at the Edward Schock Centre in downtown Elgin. The following issues were discussed by commissioners on December 10th and cheerfully shared with you by Erik & Tia after the fa...

In our last episode, Tia & Erik covered the November 12th Elgin Sustainability Commission meeting and unpacked the commission's discussion about their Single Use Bag ...

The Elgin Sustainability Commission met on Tuesday, November 12th at the Edward Schock Centre in downtown Elgin. The following issues were discussed by commissioners on November 12th and cheerfully shared with you by Erik & Tia after the fa...

The Elgin Watchman welcomes special guests Brian Pinion, Downtown Neighborhood Association Vice President and Jamie Berry, owner of Vern's Tavern as they explain the complex issue of simply throwing things away in Downtown Elgin. As a business ...

The Elgin Sustainability Commission met on Tuesday, October 8th at the Edward Schock Centre in downtown Elgin.   While Tia was off this month celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day, Erik and his Siamese Cat (aka Luang) summarize t...

The Elgin Sustainability Commission met on Tuesday, September 10th at the Edward Schock Centre in downtown Elgin.    Tia and Erik unpack the run-of-the-mill agenda items. It did not seem as if there was very many new topics be...

Our season three special series on Waste continues with this episode in which Tia, Kendra, and Erik unpack what happened at the August 28, 2024 city council meeting.Every council member weighed in with their opinionsThere w...

Our season three special series on Waste continues with this episode in which Tia chats with the Elgin City staff recommended waste hauler in the 2024 RFP, Lakeshore Recycling Services. She is joined on this hot August day by Katie Neary, Manag...

In today's sixth episode of our Season Three deep-dive series -- Waste Wars -- Tia, Kendra, and Erik discuss the August 14, 2024 meeting of the Elgin City Council. Last month, Tia and Kendra unpacked and discussed (

The Elgin Sustainability Commission met on Tuesday, August 13th at the Edward Schock Centre in downtown Elgin.    To summarize the commission agenda items, Tia and Erik typically play fun little podcast games to keep thin...

In today's fourth episode of our Season Three deep-dive series -- Waste Wars -- Tia talks with Clair Ryan, who is Kane County's Recycling Program Coordinator. Lots and lots of ground was covered throughout this episode, but here is a summary&nb...

The Elgin Sustainability Commission met on Tuesday, July 9th at the Edward Schock Centre in downtown Elgin.    To summarize the commission agenda items, Tia and Erik typically play fun little podcast games to keep things ...

In today's third episode of our Season Three deep-dive series -- Waste Wars -- Tia and Kendra go through the request for proposals (RFP) for the city of Elgin's waste hauler contract starting in 2025. How long will the waste ha...

The Elgin Sustainability Commission met on Tuesday, June 11th at the Edward Schock Centre of Elgin. (Spoiler alert . . . the meeting was adjourned at 7:28pm for the second month in a row ... so, kudos to Commission Chairperson Tom Armstrong...

The Elgin Sustainability Commission met on Tuesday, May 14th at the Edward Schock Centre of Elgin. (Spoiler alert . . . the meeting was adjourned at 7:28pm and Erik came to this episode in a great mood.)   The commiss...

In today's third episode of our Season Three deep-dive series -- Waste Wars -- Tia interviews Elgin City Council Member Carol Rauschenberger.   To say Council Member Rauschenberger's "mind is blown" on so very many topics related t...

The Elgin Sustainability Commission met on Tuesday, April 9th at the Edward Schock Centre of Elgin. Surely, this meeting occurred in an alternative universe because: 1) 100% of the city council appointed commissioners were in atten...

In today's first episode of our Season Three deep-dive series -- Waste Wars -- Tia interviews Elgin City Council Member Tish Powell.    Broadly, they discuss the city of Elgin's upcoming decision on who to hire for garbag...

The Elgin Sustainability Commission met on Tuesday, March 12th at the Edward Schock Centre of Elgin. An efficient meeting by all measurements with virtually no tangents, side conversations, talking over each other, and long-winded echoing of ea...

Welcome to Season Three of The Elgin Watchman podcast. As you know, we got off to a slow start with this podcasting season . . . winter weather, public meeting cancellations, etc. Regardless, we're back in the saddle again. We appreciate your p...

The Elgin Sustainability Commission met on Tuesday, February 13th. After cancelling the January 2024 meeting due to weather, the February meeting touched on a lot of different topics. Unfortunately, the commission couldn't vote on anything beca...

Tia and Erik chat about their favorite podcast moments of 2023 and look ahead to what's on deck in 2024 for The Elgin Watchman podcast. Spoiler alert #1 . . . Erik's biggest disappointment was the Elgin City Council's inability to ...

The Elgin Sustainability Commission met on Tuesday, December 12th. What looked like a potentially short meeting with only two agenda items, turned into a two hour debate about the pros vs. cons of using artificial turf in city parks/playgrounds...

Erik is still lost and no where to be found so Tia and Gary Swick pick up the slack and tackle the hottest topic in town: the dam! Ahhh yes..the Kimball Street dam...what is going on with that? Why's everyone talking about this?!Listen ...