BATON ROUGE - City leaders approved two monetary items at their meeting Wednesday.

The Metro Council approved a $1 increase in garbage collection. The rate increase comes with a new contract for the service which was approved in August. The rate increase was procedural Wednesday night.

The extra charge will cover glass recycling, which had been under the crusher and was set to be canceled. Glass is not a competitive item for recyclers, and the company asked for an increase to cover its growing costs of collecting glass.

Also, the council approved a TIF – tax increment financing to help spur development – for a new downtown hotel. The council originally voted against the measure earlier this year.

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