By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter
Benicia City Council agreed Tuesday night to keep Allied Waste as its contractor for garbage and recycling services, even though Mayor Elizabeth Patterson said she felt rushed to approve the lengthy contract and Councilmember Tom Campbell hoped the city would seek bids from other companies.
“To get a 118-page contract late Wednesday is annoying at least,” Patterson said, adding that she never again wanted to have so little time to study such a lengthy document.
However, she said, “There is much to like in the contract. It’s trend-setting.” It becomes effective July 1 and lasts 10 years.
The pact incorporates raises in customer fees that in general are lower than those in most Bay Area cities, consultant Richard Tagore-Erwin, principal of R3 Consulting Group of Sacramento, said.
But to the all-important question of what individual customers will pay, the answer is, “It depends.”
It depends largely on customers switching from tossing items away as garbage, and choosing instead to recycle their waste. By recycling more, a customer actually could pay less by switching to a smaller garbage container. The smaller the garbage container, the lower the fee.
The contract introduces 20-gallon garbage containers for residential use at a cost of $21.38 a month. The current minimum size is 32 gallons. Residents keeping a 32-gallon garbage container will see their rates rise from $24.09 to $25.29.
Users of 64-gallon bins will pay $30.97 instead of $28.15, and those with 96-gallon containers will pay $42.71, up from $38.83.
The new rates would not change for 20- and 32-gallon containers until July 2013, after which they may increase from 2.25 percent to 4 percent in 2014, from 2 to 4 percent annually in 2015 and 2016, and no more than 4 percent after that. The current rate of increase has been 5 percent.
New to the agreement is mandatory commercial and industrial recycling. Like residents, companies also can reduce their rates if they reduce the amount of garbage they throw away in favor of recycling more.
Gary Heppell, chairman of the Benicia Chamber of Commerce board of directors, said the new contract ultimately would save businesses as well as residents money because of unlimited free recycling opportunities.
The old contract diverts about 35 percent of Benicia’s waste from the Keller Canyon Landfill in Baypoint to recycling programs. The new contract’s goal is to increase this to 75 percent by Dec. 31, 2016.
If Allied misses this target, its contract won’t be renewed.
The contract increases the insurance coverage Allied is required to provide; requires quarterly reports from the contractor; provides free service to Benicia Unified School District and city operations; requires more public information and community service from Allied; increases recycling options; and introduces more natural gas-powered vehicles in the contractor’s fleet.
Only Campbell cast a “no” vote on the pact Tuesday. “My bias is toward bidding,” he said.
When last year’s talks appeared to break down, the Council decided at its Dec. 16 meeting that negotiating subcommittee Vice Mayor Alan Schwartzman and Councilmember Mike Ioakimedes should continue meeting with Allied representatives and return Jan. 18 with a deal or a recommendation that the Council seek bids.
“Our directive in December was to hammer out an agreement, not ‘Give me your best,’ and go shop it,” Ioakimedes said.
Campbell responded, “There was no guarantee we wouldn’t go out to bid anyway.”
The Council Chambers audience, residents and business owners alike urged the Council to accept the contract without change. Residents praised the company’s employees as conscientious and efficient.
Tom Gavin called the company “a value-added contractor,” saying when its employees volunteer at local events, “they’re not there as window dressing.”
Benicia Main Street Executive Director Nancy Martinez concurred, saying the company answers when her organization needs help paying for garbage containers on First Street.
Eldon Petersen of the city’s Economic Development Board reminded the Council that Allied has a nearly perfect safety record.
Kathy Kerridge, chair of the Community Sustainability Commission, also liked the increased recycling and was reassured that electronic waste would be recycled in an environmentally safe manner.
“I’m very happy. It’s a good deal,” Tim Argenti, general manager of Allied Waste, said after the agreement was approved. “It’s got everything in it.”
Constance Beutel says
Thank you for the informative article! The other good news about this contract is that the brown bin recycling would become a weekly event, organic kitchen waste will be allowed in the Green recycling bin (that would still be every other week) AND Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) of materials like fertilizers, paint thinner, pesticides will be disposable via a curbside procedure. I’m confident there will be more information from Allied Waste on when this will start and how to proceed.