HomeMy WebLinkAbout8 8 05 agenda
Falcon Heights Environment Commission
Monday, August 8, 2005
6:00 p.m.
Conference Room
City Hall
AGENDA
1. Discussion of E-Z sale to Waste Management
a. Update from Staff
b.
Discussion
c. Recommendation for next steps
2. Other Business
3. Adjourn
8/5/05
MEMORANDUM
To: Environment Commissioners
C: Mayor Gehrz, Councilmembers Kuettel, Lamb, Lindstrom and Talbot
From: Heather Worthington, City Administrator
RE: E-Z
Recycling Contract Renewal
I was informed today that E-Z Recycling has sold their business to Waste Management. Apparently, they were negotiating the sale at the same time they were
negotiating the contract renewal with us; however, they had signed a non-disclosure agreement with WM about those negotiations. The contract renewal that we negotiated and approved
in June was not ratified by E-Z, and as part of the sale, Waste Management does not consider this contract to be in force at this time.
I spoke with Jennefer Klennert from Waste Management
this morning, and here is what I know at this point concerning the existing contract, which runs through the end of this year; and the renewal contract:
Waste Management does not believe
we have a contract beginning January 1, 2006. Because of the sale, they will not honor any previous agreement signed by E-Z. I have not yet checked with our attorney on this—but I
plan to have more information for your meeting on Monday.
They will honor our existing contract through the end of this year, at $1.42/unit for household pickups, and $583.44 per month
for apartment pickups.
They want to honor the agreement we negotiated with E-Z with the following changes:
3% increase each year for the duration of the contract
Single-sort for paper,
two-stream sort for “rigids” (bottles, cans, plastics with necks, etc…). Essentially, they would retain a two-sort at the curb, but it sounds like they would not retain a two-sort at
their facility. We do know that they are a single-sort facility.
They will not accept motor oil and car batteries.
At this point, we have several options. I will try to outline what I see as the most promising:
We can re-negotiate our contract with Waste Management and try to come to terms that
are beneficial to us, and to our residents.
We can utilize the E-Z contract as a basis for an RFP process. I think we have done the majority of work on identifying what is important
to us for recycling services, and those priorities are outlined in the renewed contract. I would estimate that this process would take about 90 days to complete—so we would need to
start very quickly.
Clearly, we had an excellent price for recycling negotiated, so this is a disappointment. Since the recycling market is continuing to contract, and not expand the
number of vendors, I cannot predict what kind of pricing we could get with an RFP; however, at this point, that may be our best bet in getting what we want and need in terms of price
and service.
I will see you Monday evening. Please call me if you cannot attend this meeting, as consensus on this issue will be important in making a recommendation to the City Council
in how to proceed. Thanks!