Jan
19
Los Al solid waste contract: Rolls Royce? Tax increase? Payback to Briggeman?
Filed Under 2010 Issues, City Council, George Briggeman
(Los Alamitos, 1/19/2010) 
As reported here earlier, tonight’s Los Alamitos City Council meeting includes discussion and recommended approval of almost 200 pages of documents relating to the Request for Proposals (RFP) for solid waste collections services for 2011 – 2020.
It’s interesting that for at least the last 20 years our trash contract never went out to bid. The hope was that an open bidding process would result in lower costs for Los Alamitos residents and businesses.
Some were, suspicious, however offormer Los Al trash hauler George Briggeman’s estimated $100,000 investment in electing the current majority (see “The $20,000 tip of the Briggeman/CPLA iceberg?“) Although Briggeman has proclaimed that he has sold his interest in the trucks that still bear his name to Republic Disposal Services, the money he spent on the election made some wonder if he wasn’t still on retainer from Republic to maintain the solid waste policy his family had controlled for decades.
I didn’t have time to review all 200 pages, but I put up links to those documents just yesterday. Apparently the system “worked,” at least to an extent, as I received a call about an hour ago from one Los Al citizen who was in the process of wading through the 65 page draft RFP the Council is to vote on tonight.
Although the citizen was only up to page 32 when he called me, he had found some items that caused concern:
The Briggeman/Republic Advantage:
Under item “Proposal Enhancements,” 3.12 on page 32 of the document (which is actually about page 36 of the adobe document linked above), we’re told
In addition to the Collector’s participation in the community via the financial and in-kind support of civic organizations, school programs, and other non-profit groups whose purpose is to improve the quality of life in the City, the City hopes to receive proposals that, among others, will achieve the following:
Local Vendor Patronage (use of local venues for company events and local vendors for parts and supplies) Local Hiring Preference Local Customer Service Office (Six day per week walk-in service for Los Alamitos customers.)
I’ve only lived here 22 years, but so far I’ve never needed to walk into a local office for the trash company. When they miss a pick up, or I’m not sure of the holiday schedule, a phone call is a whole lot easier. When I need to pay a bill, I mail it in. Actually, it’s now auto debited from my account at the bank formerly known as World Savings and soon to be known as Wells Fargo.
Seems to me that requiring a local office only increases our trash fees, and gives a special preference to the owner of the local Briggeman Industrial Park. And why not–the last time Mayor Poe was on the Council they renamed one block of Sausalito Briggeman Ave.
Don’t get me wrong–there’s no question that over the years the Briggeman family have made significant contributions to our community. And I have very few complaints about the trash service currently supplied by Republic, Consolidated, Briggeman, or whatever our current contractor calls themselves (names on your trash truck may vary). I just want the contract to go to the best bidder at the best price. And I’d like to see a little more sunlight on the process than we’ve seen so far.
Do we need a Rolls Royce trash contract?
In addition to favoring the Briggeman/Republic juggernaut, all of the “Program Enhancements” cited above run up the costs for the hauler, which runs up the costs you and I will be paying for trash pickup through 2020! I know the city’s encountering some rough financial times, but, guess what: So are many of the citizens. I thought the purpose of the bidding process was to get good service at the best available price, not to strong-arm donations to local non-profits and force hiring of local residents.
I think I’d rather keep the price down, thank you.
The real issue here isn’t how expensive and nice a trash contract you and I need to be paying for over the next decade, however. The real issue is adequate citizen input into the process. Last year the Council was fond of holding public “workshops” on major issues. What we want in a trash contract that lasts ten years seems to be a topic worthy of some sort of public meeting, not just shoved into a jam packed City Council meeting tonight.
A hidden tax?
Buried in the fourth sentence under # 4, “Residential Premises,” on the page labeled #30 of the RFP draft (but actually page 34 of the adobe document) is the following:
Bills must be itemized, but may not designate that portion of a customer’s bill attributable to the franchise fee as a separate item.
What’s the “franchise fee?” Basically, the kickback to the city coffers from the trash company. And the city wants to make sure you don’t know how much of your trash bill is going directly to the city’s general fund.
Now, to be fair, that’s the way the current trash contract works as well–but the current contract was not the work of the former majority, but of the Poe majority of ten years ago.
Again, to be fair, most cities don’t disclose the percent of the trash bill that goes towards the franchise fee. But the current Council majority made much ado about the need for transparency about a year ago, and I’d think knowing where my trash bill actually goes would be a step towards transparency.
Why the rush?
Over a year ago I discussed the process of bidding on a solid waste contract with our former City Manager Dave Rudat. He explained that this is a very complex process. It involves a number of variables:
- quality of service
- cost to residents
- cost to businesses, government, and schools
- income to city from the franchise fee
Mr. Rudat explained that it was a complex process that would take a great deal of time.
Indeed, the staff report on the bid indicates some documentation and figures won’t be available until tonight’s meeting!
But here we have almost 200 pages of documents setting the standard for the bid to be discussed and voted on as just one item of a very lengthy agenda in the second Council Meeting of the day!
200 pages that were released to the Council members just before a 3 day holiday weekend that preceded the only Regular Council Meeting of the month. Seems like more public discussion and circulation of the information would be helpful. Hopefully tonight the Council will make it clear that they value public discussion on topics like this by setting a public meeting where the issues can be explained and explored. Certainly a “workshop” might be in order on this topic.
We’ll see.
Interesting.
Comments
13 Responses to “Los Al solid waste contract: Rolls Royce? Tax increase? Payback to Briggeman?”
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Transparency? We don’t need no stinking transparency!! It’s BrigerPoeville!
I didn’t find out about this until 3:30 this afternoon. Typical of our council. Just another “sneak this document in the backdoor” meeting. This is just like the special meeting that was called during Christmas Vacation (when everyone was out of town or focused on the holidays) and a very important vote was made about low income housing without proper citizen input.
Our citizens need more time and proper notification about this document. From what it appears so far, it is written to lock out many companies from the bid process. What kind of an open and competitive bid process is this when only one company is qualified to bid. Looks like another 10 year (scratch that) 20 year monopoly is on the horizon and the Los Al citizens get the shaft!
I’ll have to do something that I’ve never done…backpedal from my last post. The council, for the most part, did a pretty good job of dissecting the RFP and dispelling the rumors. They also removed the proposal enhancements, which seems to be in the right direction.
The combined residential/commercial contract seemed like a much better plan. We are the only city in the County that currently has our contract broken up into two contracts(residential and commercial) the other 33 of 34 cities utilize the combined contract. It will combine many administrative positions, procedures and fees by contracting with one company that serves both. The council even seemed to listen to Dave Emerson’s suggestions.
This process will still require cautious scrutiny by all of us. Our current trash hauler did spend $100,000 on the last election and four of those recipients are now overseeing the bid process to fill the contract.
As reported by JHubert above, the Council did spend a fair amount of time discussing the solid waste Request for Proposals (RFP) at last night’s meeting, and made several improvements.
For the Register’s report on that aspect of the meeting, click here:
http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-230006-contract-waste.html
As someone who audited and built complex RFP’s for years, I have never seen one like this one. There was a great deal in that RFP that didn’t need to be there.
Lisa–That was my thought. The good news is that the Council took some of it out last night, and did spend over an hour wrangling with it.
My concern is that all they put in only drives up our cost for trash for the next ten years. Seems like maybe it’s turning into a Christmas tree that you and I are forced to pay for.
For example, I support We Care and Precious Life, but I don’t think I should be forced to pay part of their trash bill every time I pay mine. Let’s face it, this is a monopoly, & it seems to me the goal should be economical but decent trash collection for residents.
What, specifically, do you most think needs to be removed?
There were areas that did not seem appropriate for an RFP. Its too long to go through each one here. An RFP simply gives what services are needed and the schedule by which they should be given, with all the t’s&c’s tacked on. I’ve seen RFP for complex govt. projects with less information attached for 100 million dollar projects. There were too many goals and principles attached which had no business being there.
holy flying pigs batman, Lisa and I agree on something.
I also do not want to pay for the trash pick up at Precious Life. They do not pay for trash pick up and it may be because Poe struck a special deal with her buddy Briggeman when she rolled over his last contract for a 10 year extention.
There is no “Free Lunch” somebody is paying for the Poe’s pet projects. The cost is probably being absorbed by the residents of Los Al.
Are you paying attention Los Al? There is some major back scratching going on around here.
Government contracts are not to promote special interests or non profits.
The dais of the Los Al city council is not the place to promote a coucil members special interest.
To Dave and all:
I agree. There were a lot of added items that were mentioned at the end of this council agenda item. Free unlimited large item pick ups, free e-waste pick ups, free haz-mat pick ups, free bi-annual containers cleanings, etc. These items might be free but, it costs the vendor. The vendor will hide the cost in another part of the contract (i.e. – nothing is free). These items have very real and inexpensive alternatives that no one has explored. There are many non-profits , schools, etc. that perform and can benefit from e-waste drive fundraisers. The county also offers a free haz-mat disposal service that is already free to Los Al residents. Our nearby facility is at
Exactly!
The tone and direction of these last few posts could certainly provide the council with some meaningful discussion of resident expectations regarding trash services in particular and Council oversight in general.
The realization by that each and every requirement placed upon the “collector” has a price attached to it is critical to what we will pay. That price is:
1. Actual cost to fulfill the requirement (eg. a 15 line phone system and the employee cost to man the 15 line phone).
2. Profit and overhead associated with fulfilling that cost.
3. The ‘Franchise Fee’ (currently 8%) that will be added to the cost and will be paid to the City.
The consumer (us)will be paying the total price including the Franchise Fee.
Everyone should down load the RFP and Contract and review it carefully. Where you see phrases like “Collector Shall”… you should be thinking,”And I shall Pay”, then ask yourself do we really need this?
Example:Requiring the collector to install and maintain… “a phone system capable of handling 15 incoming calls at one time” is very specific and very costly. I doubt the city has that capability in their phone system and if they did how many people would you have to hire to handle 15 calls at one time?
Councilmember Mejia asked that question and the consultant explained that it was not an issue because the companies that will be bidding on this contract are large, service other cities and already have this phone capability.
Good answer but the effect of this one requirement is to severely handicap smaller more efficient trash haulers who might otherwise want to bid on the little Los Alamitos trash contract. After all this is how George Briggeman Sr. started, right here in little Los Alamitos with his first trash hauling job.
The requirement should read something like this,” Collector will maintain sufficient staffing and telephone capability to promptly and efficiently meet the customer service needs of the residents of Los Alamitos.”
The fact is no one from the city will be going to the trash haulers service location (outsourced to India) counting telephone lines or staffing throughout the life of the contract.
We will be paying a higher price for the “lack of real competition” if potential bidders are foreclosed by specious contractual requirements.
In a broader sense this trash contract is but one small piece of the larger city management puzzle cost that we all pay. The more attention we pay to the details in the end will benefit the council in their decision making as they know in a broad sense what we expect.
Keep in mind there are competing factions in the corporate entity called, “The City of Los Alamitos”. Those factions are the citizens represented by “The City Council” and the “Paid Staff” headed by the City Manager”.
It is in the best financial interests of the Staff to insure the ever inceasing money flow into the city (fees and taxes) and limit the outflow of money (except for staffing and salaries). This does not mean they are bad people and don’t care about doing a good job. It means they are just like you and me. We know and they know where our respective sources of income lie and we strive to protect and increase our inflow from those sources.
It is up to our representatives on the council to continually be aware (and up to us to remind them), they are representing us and not the paid staff or the other interests in the city.
Art–
You wrote, “It is up to our representatives on the council to continually be aware they are representing us and not the paid staff or the other interests in the city.”
Unfortunately, the current majority was put into place with the hard work and cash of the city staff, both knocking doors and buying ads. That makes it even more important for Los Al residents to be informed and to make their views known to the Council.
If the only pressure they get is from staff, our needs will sometimes be ignored. And most of the staff don’t live in Los Alamitos, and they won’t be stuck paying the trash bill for the next decade!
One example: I took the time to show up at the last meeting and diplomatically address the Council with some of these issues regarding the trash contract. To my surprise, they spent almost two hours discussing the RFP, and supported Troy Edgar’s motion to remove some of the most onerous of the requirements.
It was a step in the right direction, at least, for which the Council should be commended. Unfortunately, however, the RFP still now goes out to bid with many costly other requirements still included. We’re going to end up with the Rolls Royce of trash contracts, and I would have been quite happy with a Toyota–er, make that a Ford!
I’d like to think if more than one person had addressed the Council on this matter, more of those requirements might have been removed.
“The price of freedom (and of an efficient city government) is eternal vigilance.”