- April 18, 2024
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City Council members agree that taking the contract out to bid ensures competitve rates.
The Palm Coast City Council, at its Aug. 16 meeting, decided to open itself for business and field offers from companies on a new waste-hauling contract.
City Manager Jim Landon said Tuesday morning that it might be in the council’s best interest to go out to bid for a new contract.
The city’s current contract with Waste Pro is worth about $7 million. From Oct. 1, 2009, to Sept. 30, 2010, Palm Coast residents paid $238.74 per household for garbage removal.
“From a public process standpoint, your credibility is hurt if people don’t believe you’re being fair,” Landon said.
The council then unanimously approved — an official vote wasn’t necessary — to remove the agenda item that directed staff to work out a contract extension with Waste Pro.
The motion represented a reversal of last week’s meeting, when the City Council informally appeared to agree to follow city staff’s recommendation to renegotiate a five-year extension with its current hauler, Waste Pro, instead of opening the contract for other bids.
Now, the next step will be to field the offers, a process that Landon said won’t be easy.
“I’ve done this before, and waste haulers will not make this easy,” Landon said. “They won’t give you apples. They will give you strawberries and watermelons. That’s the nature of this business.”
Though Waste Pro was the recipient of mostly positive remarks, Mayor Jon Netts said putting out requests for proposals is the only way to find out the lowest price available.
“Hopefully we can reduce the monthly bill for citizens,” City Council member Mary DiStefano added.
Netts said it’s important to specify what the city wants and what the city needs for the companies interested in earning the city’s work.
The City Council indicated some aspects are must-haves, including single-stream recycling, a recycling incentive program and an option for pickup two days per week versus one day per week.
Landon said staff will evaluate each proposal, adding: “This is one of those that, while yes, going out to the competitive process is what government does and what people expect of us, it also gives us a bad name because taking the low bid hurts the service and, for five years, you have people upset because you took the low bid.”
Landon also said Waste Pro has offered to continue collecting trash come Jan. 1, 2012, if the city hasn’t reached an agreement with another hauler or reached an extension agreement with Waste Pro.
