From:
To: Sandra Maurer; City Council
Subject: Re: Support for Recology is Supporting our Community Date: Monday, January 6, 2025 9:35:17 AM
Please see this letter from Recology. As noted, in my original email in the attachment, our projected bill for our building is also showing a nearly $700 increase. The staff report is lacking information from SCRR and therefore, transparency. This is not less expensive, it is drastically more expensive.
On Monday, January 6, 2025, Sandra Maurer <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Danielle,
I am not intending to be dismissive. I am intending to explain how we got where we are. I wanted to keep Recology.
I will ask about your situation and get back to you.
Cambridge Palm & Tombe Realty, our landlord, would face a $698.94 monthly increase under SCRR—a staggering 33.87% increase compared to Recology for one single building's service. I attached our bill for you to plainly see the facts. This is largely due to drastically higher costs for recycling and composting.
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Sandra Maurer
Sebastopol City Councilmember
On Jan 6, 2025, at 8:16 AM, Danielle Connor < wrote:
Your dismissive comments continue to show your inability to listen to your community and the constituents who elected you. Many people have spoken - we do not want SCRR as our service provider for all of the reasons listed in my email. Please take a moment to go back and read it, clearly Recology is the better choice for Sebastopol.
On Mon, Jan 6, 2025 at 8:08 AM Sandra Maurer <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Danielle,
Thank you for writing to council to express your concerns. Please see the attached report pg. 5,6, and 7 for a rate comparison between SCRR and Recology.
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
On Jan 6, 2025, at 6:33 AM, Danielle Connor
< wrote:
Dear Members of the Sebastopol City Council,
I am writing to express my strong support for retaining Recology Sonoma Marin as Sebastopol’s trash service provider. Choosing SCRR instead of Recology is not in the best interest of our community, as it will negatively impact both residents and businesses.
SCRR’s proposed rates are significantly higher, especially for commercial and multi-family customers. For example, Cambridge Palm & Tombe Realty, our landlord, would face a $698.94 monthly increase under SCRR —a staggering 33.87% increase compared to Recology for one single building's service. I attached our bill for you to plainly see the facts. This is largely due to drastically higher costs for recycling and composting.
Such rate hikes discourage participation in environmentally crucial programs like recycling and composting, and will trickle down to small businesses and residential communities who are lease-holders.
Additionally, SCRR does not have a local recycling facility, transporting materials out of the county to facilities with lower processing capacity. This will undermine Sebastopol’s recycling rate, increase greenhouse gas emissions, and contradict our city’s sustainability values.
In contrast, Recology is an employee-owned company with a state-ofthe-art facility that properly recycles 85% of collected materials. They actively support our community by providing exceptional service, transparency, and resources for local events. Recology’s proposed rates are also more affordable for the majority of residential customers, including a $4 per month savings on the widely used 32-gallon garbage cart. Recology also donates waste bins to local events and has a strong community relationship we should continue to foster.
It is important to note that SCRR is part of a larger, non-local corporation, which means profits are more likely to leave our community rather than being reinvested locally. In comparison, Recology’s employee-owned model ensures that profits stay within the organization, benefiting workers and supporting community initiatives.
Choosing SCRR would take money away from Sebastopol and concentrate it in a larger corporate entity with less stake in our local well-being. This information is present on their website and with a quick Google search, you can clearly see the corporations that own them, and that they are not local.
Presenting this company as a small local entity is plain misinformation.
Sebastopol is already grappling with rising costs from PG&E rate increases and water rate hikes. Our small businesses, the backbone of our local economy, are struggling to stay afloat. In the past year, we’ve seen far too many closures, and further cost increases could drive even more out of our community. We need city council members who understand that keeping costs down as much as possible for both small businesses and residents means that our local economy will thrive.
Sebastopol prides itself on being environmentally conscious and community-focused. SCRR’s poor track record in Windsor—marked by customer complaints, lack of transparency, and rising costs—further demonstrates they are not aligned with these values.
I would also like to address a concern regarding responses from Council Member Saundra to constituents’ inquiries. Some of these responses have come across as dismissive of valid concerns, suggesting they are not real despite the availability of clear, fact-based rate comparison data showing SCRR to be more expensive than Recology.
It is crucial that our leaders acknowledge and engage with these wellsupported concerns in a meaningful and transparent way, your job is to listen to the constituents that elected you and not passively brush off their concerns with no data or concrete information.
I urge you to prioritize the interests of Sebastopol’s residents and businesses by maintaining our partnership with Recology Sonoma Marin. Their commitment to affordability, sustainability, and community support makes them the clear choice for our city.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Danielle Connor & Casey Lanski
Owners, Retrograde Coffee Roasters
photo Danielle Connor, she/her
Co-Founder, Head of Operations,
Retrograde Coffee Roasters
www.retrograderoasters.com
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