WHITMIRE — Municipal utility customers in Whitmire soon will have a new way to kick their trash to the curb.

The Whitmire Town Council was updated Monday night at its regular monthly meeting that the city will begin distributing 750 new trash cans to its utility customers in the first part of January 2010. Council members also learned town street and sanitation employee Brandon Hill is currently in training to become certified to drive the new garbage truck the town purchased along with the new trash cans.

If all goes well, Hill will be able to begin picking up trash with the new truck by the beginning of February at the latest once his education is complete.

According to town clerk Carla Taylor, the truck cannot be used for route pick ups until after Whitmire has a certified driver. The town has had the new vehicle since sometime in November and it was showcased during the Christmas Parade on Saturday, Dec. 12, but that’s the farthest it’s been driven since it arrived.

As for the trash cans, city employees — with the aide of members of the Beta Club and Student Council of the Whitmire schools — have been putting them together over the last several weeks.

Taylor said the new truck holds more than the old vehicle that is being replaced. Therefore, trash collection will go from twice a week on each side of town to just once each week. The truck also will only need to make just one trip each week to the Newberry County Transfer Station in Newberry and before the new trash cans arrived municipal utilities customers had to purchase their own trash cans to set out.

Whitmire was able to secure a grant of about $126,000 from rural development funds to help pay for the new trash cans and garbage truck. With a town match of about $40,000 the project comes to a grand total of more than $160,000.

In other business, the council:

n Decided to table any action on raising the cost for cemetery lots until further information could be gathered. Council members want to see how other communities handle the issue before making any decisions. The issue was brought up at last month’s meeting. The town pays someone to care for the cemetery property which is quickly running out of room. Gravesite rates have not increased for sometime and facing a possible need for expansion Taylor said increasing the lot rates could provide the additional revenue to purchase more land. Current lot rates are $250 per gravesite for people living within city limits and $500 for those living outside city limits.

n Heard an update from council member Debbie Harris on a proposed skate park.

n Was again approached by members of Cedar Grove AME Zion Church about getting a city waterline to run to their church building. The group was asked to come back after the town had gotten final figures on the cost of such a project.