From:
To: Sandra Maurer
Cc: [email protected]; Phill Carter; [email protected]; Jill McLewis; Mary Gourley; Subject: RE: Sebastopol Hardware - Recology vs. SCRR
Date: Tuesday, January 7, 2025 1:42:58 PM
Hi Sandra & Council,
I wanted to follow-up with all of you with additional information that I’ve received based on several conversations today, and thank you to those who reached out to investigate our concerns. Kevin Walbridge, owner of SCRR, came by the store earlier today and we had a good conversation. He was able to provide some more background information on how commercial rates, and specifically recycling rates will be determined for each business. I did see in the report that was posted that all rates were listed as “Maximum Rates”, and since that’s all that was provided, that’s all we had to go on. Kevin explained that rates for each commercial customer will be based on their actual recycling type usage, i.e. mixed-recycling, wood, clean cardboard, etc. For Sebastopol Hardware, the vast majority of what we generate is cleancardboard which is much less expensive to process, so our recycling rates would be significantly less than the “maximum rates” listed in the proposal. Our rates will still certainly go up, but it sounds like at a much more manageable amount.
I still have some hesitancy, because the information that we have access to is incomplete.
What are the exact clean cardboard rates? What would our pricing be under Recology? With the information provided we are not able to do an accurate apples-to-apples comparison.
Seeing how businesses are the ones that will be seeing the majority of these rate increases, it would be nice to know exactly what we are getting into. I do not know if the vote has to be made tonight, or what the realistic ability is for businesses to get these comparisons, but that would be my request.
Thank You
From: Sandra Maurer <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, January 5, 2025 1:30 PM
Subject: Re: Recology
Dear all,
Thank you for writing to council to express your concerns.
When the need for a new garbage contract came to council in April 2023, the vote to renew the contract with Recology was split 3/2. I was one of the three who supported renewing the contract because I had received many comments in support of Recology's services, I believed their services were excellent, and staff had asked to extend the contract. Two council members wanted to go out for proposals. The council created an ad hoc committee and I served, and still serve on it, as does Vice Mayor Jill McLewis and the assistant city manager, public works director and the city engineer. I fully intended and believed that we would be able to negotiate a new contract with Recology, but after months of effort we failed. Their rate increases were too high and they were inflexible. It was a very disappointing experience.
Next we brought it back to council. The council voted 4-0 (one council member was absent) to go out for proposals. There were two proposers- Recology and Sonoma County Resource Recovery (SCRR) who currently serves Windsor. I studied the proposals very carefully.
Although the scoring for both was relatively close, the adhoc committee was in full agreement to switch to SCRR. They are smaller, have a better service model, and they were more responsive to our needs. Their proposed rates are below Recology and they are committed to help residents and businesses right size their containers. Throughout the process SCRR demonstrated and we believed they are a better fit for Sebastopol.
Warm regards,
Sandra Maurer
Sebastopol City Councilmember