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MOUNDS VIEW City of Mounds View Staff Report Item No: 8D Meeting Date: March 25, 2024 Type of Business: Council Business City Administrator Review: NZikmund To: Honorable Mayor and View City Council From: Nyle Zikmund, City Administrator Item Title/Subject: Resolutions related to Organized Collection Negotiations Introduction: At your March 6, 2024 workshop, you asked staff to draft a resolution to terminate negotiations with currently licensed haulers ("haulers") and schedule additional meetings of the organized collection options committee. Staff prepared a resolution to memorialize that direction. On March 11, 2024, Council directed staff to request a "best and final" offer from the haulers to be submitted no later than noon March 21, 2024. Today, there are two resolutions for the Council's consideration: one resolution to terminate negotiations, and a second resolution to continue to negotiate with the haulers. For the latter resolution, staff are directed to return to the Council with a fully negotiated contract on May 13, 2024. Discussion: Negotiations with the haulers began on October 12, 2023. Since negotiations began, the City has been focused on obtaining a price for organized collection. This desire stems from ongoing desire by City residents to compare their current bill to an organized collection bill before determining whether to support organized collection. Throughout negotiations, the haulers have indicated that the price is directly tied to the terms of the organized collection contract. For that reason, the City and haulers initially agreed that the City would provide a term sheet with a tentative list of proposed services in order to obtain an initial quote on pricing of services from the haulers. The City provided this term sheet and a fee schedule to the haulers on October 6, 2023. At the October 23, 2023 meeting between the City and haulers, the haulers changed their position and refused to provide an initial quote on pricing via the fee schedule without a contract. This change in position by the haulers was clearly contrary to the initial agreement but City staff and legal counsel nonetheless drafted a contract for the haulers' consideration and provided that draft to the haulers in November of 2023. Between November 9, 2023 and today, the City negotiations team has been working through the terms of the contract with the haulers. In total, the haulers and the City have met 16 times and the City and the haulers have produced 18 drafts of the Contract. The City sent frequent emails to summarize meetings and offer to communicate outside of formal negotiation settings. The City sent such communications on the following 16 dates: 10/16/23, 10/23/23, 11/9/23, 11/16/23, 11/29/23, 12/14/23, 1/2/24, 1/4/24, 1/10/24, 2/8/24, 2/9/24, 2/12/24, 2/19/24, 2/21/24, 2/26/24, and 2/28/24. During meetings and in these emails, the City provided updates to encourage progress, summarized discussions, listed outstanding issues, and repeatedly offered to provide any assistance or accommodation requested by the haulers that would help negotiations progress. The haulers provided their first written response to the Contract draft on February 8, 2024, almost exactly three months after the MU210\313\938517.v5