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The president of the city's trash hauling contractor will appear before council Wednesday night to answer questions about his company's collection practices.

But that's unlikely to satisfy several members of council or the city's elected controller, who want an outside investigator hired to find out why trash collection costs are 20 percent higher than expected. Council President Michael Cherepko on Tuesday agreed to solicit bids from several agencies before the June meeting.

The issue has become more volatile because of a heated Democratic primary campaign for mayor that has pitted three current members of council against Mayor Regis McLaughlin and former school director Lori Spando.

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At Tuesday's council work session, Cherepko --- the endorsed Democratic candidate for mayor --- announced that Nickolas Nickolich, president of Clairton-based Nickolich Sanitation, would speak at council's regular meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Council last month voted unanimously to investigate why the amount of trash being collected by Nickolich is about 20 percent more than collected by the city's previous garbage hauler, Allied Waste Services. The increase in trash collection has virtually wiped out any money the city expected to save by switching to Nickolich.

In a memo to council, McLaughlin recommended that the city hire Corporate Security and Investigations of Monaca, Beaver County, to conduct the investigation, but Cherepko did not put the recommendation on the agenda for this month's meeting.

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That led Controller Ray Malinchak to write a memo to city officials last week --- which was sent over the weekend to the Daily News, a freelance writer for the Post-Gazette and Tube City Almanac --- accusing Cherepko of "suppressing" an investigation. If council doesn't hire CSI, Malinchak said, he would hire the firm himself.

A frequent critic of former Mayor Jim Brewster and other city officials, Malinchak was rumored to be considering a run for mayor, but he is not a candidate in the Democratic primary. Cherepko is a political ally of Brewster, who's now a state senator.

On Tuesday, Councilman Darryl Segina --- who is a candidate for mayor in the primary --- repeated the accusation, saying that Cherepko is "throwing up barriers" to council's probe.

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"I'm not throwing up any barriers," Cherepko said Tuesday, adding that he objects to spending $5,000 or more to hire CSI before hearing from Nickolich.

"If you just want to know how much tonnage (Nickolich) is collecting, you could have five city employees ride around with Mr. Nickolich for five days or 10 days and see what the tonnage is," Cherepko said. "That would be significantly less than $5,000."

Councilman Dale McCall suggested that city police could conduct an investigation, and council "wouldn't have to pay anything."

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But Malinchak charged that city officials and employees have a "conflict of interest" because they could be implicated if any wrongdoing was uncovered. "There have been accusations made against this council," Malinchak said. "Who is going to sit on this committee that doesn't have a possible conflict?"

An series of anonymous letters sent to city hall have claimed that Nickolich, which collects trash in several neighboring boroughs and townships as well as McKeesport, hasn't been completely emptying its trucks before collecting the city's garbage. That, claims the anonymous letter-writer, accounts for the increase.

"I wouldn't be stupid enough to (accuse) Nickolich of any misdeeds," Segina said Tuesday. The increased collection may have a benign cause, he said. "Nothing is going to come out of an investigation that's going to be earth-shaking news," Segina said.

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Some city officials have suggested that several factors could have caused trash collection to increase, including trash dumping by residents of neighboring communities, single-family houses that have been converted into multiple-unit rentals, and commercial garbage being thrown in bins at the Palisades and McKees Point Marina.

If the investigation devolves "into a heated debate" among political rivals, Segina said, "we don't get any closer to finding out where this additional tonnage is coming from."

Councilman A.J. Tedesco Jr. --- another candidate for the Democratic nomination for mayor --- suggested council should get competing bids from several outside investigators besides CSI.

Cherepko said he would solicit proposals before June's council meeting: "If we get (bids) before the June meeting, we will convene (council) before then to discuss them."

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