VIDALIA — The Vidalia Board of Aldermen is making another push to increase recycling participation.

City employees will be passing out advertisements to households for the recycling program while they are reading utility meters.

“We still have a few bins we need to pass out,” Alderman Ricky Knapp said. “So if you haven’t signed up for recycling, please do so.”

Knapp said the 35-gallon recycling bins can be ordered from the city for free by calling City Hall at (318)-336-5206.

“We’d like to see so much participation that it cuts down the volume that’s going to the landfill,” Knapp said. “That way, we are only having to pick up garbage one day a week and recycling one day a week.”

Mayor Hyram Copeland said the city would save money by having one garbage collection day with enough participation

“We hope the general public would work with us on this, it helps the environment, it helps keep down the cost,” Copeland said. “We have had good participation so far, but we still have a lot of bins.”

In other new from the meeting:

– The council adopted a new tax levied on a 6.7-acre district on the Vidalia Riverfront and a 33-acre district on Carter Street, opposite of Walmart.

The tax, called tax increment financing, will be for businesses developing on those properties.

“The (land) developer will take out a loan (from the city) essentially to put in the basic infrastructure. Roads, water, sewers and that sort of thing,” Concordia Parish Economic Development Director Heather Malone said. “Then, when businesses come in, they won’t have to do it. But they will have to pay a higher tax to pay off the loan.”

Copeland said the new policy has already attracted interested businesses for the property opposite of Walmart.

– The board accepted a lease from the Desai Hotel Group of Jackson for 90-room TownPlace Suites by Marriot on the Vidalia Riverfront.

Desai will be paying $33,000 an acre for five years on the 3.7-acre section of land.

The lease was presented in front of the Board of Aldermen last month, and plans for the hotel should be approved this month.

– Alderwoman Maureen Saunders asked city maintenance crew to remove any signs on public land.

Maureen cited examples of signs used for promoting events and people who are campaigning for elections.

The signs violate city ordinances, and Saunders said they should be removed unless the signs are on private property.

The only exception is political signs, which are allowed on public land 90 days before an election.