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BRAD HALPERN RAY PEARL NED E DAVIS KELLY HONIG SUSAN MOSWEENEY Mayor Mayor Pro Tem Councilmember Councilmember Councilmember
MINUTES
Study Session Meeting of the City Council
July 27, 2022
CALL TO ORDER:
This Study Session Meeting of the Westlake Village City Council was called to order by Mayor Halpern on Wednesday, June 27, 2022, at 4:39 p.m., at 31200 Oak Crest Drive, Westlake Village.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE:
Mayor Halpern led the Pledge of Allegiance.
ROLL CALL:
PRESENT: Councilmembers Honig, Davis, Mayor Pro Tem Pearl, and Mayor Halpern
ABSENT: Councilmember McSweeney
Also Present: City Manager de Geus, City Attorney Boga, Deputy City Manager Eskandar, Administrative Services Director Wilson, Planning Director Forbes and City Clerk Mann.
APPROVAL OF AGENDA:
Councilmember Davis moved to approve the Agenda as presented. Mayor Pro Tem Pearl seconded the motion.
YES: Councilmembers Honig, Davis, Mayor Pro Tem Pearl, and Mayor Halpern
NO: None
ABSENT: Councilmember McSweeney
ABSTAIN: None
Mayor Halpern declared the motion passed 4-0, with Councilmember McSweeney absent City Council Study Session Minutes
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PUBLIC COMMENTS:
Rondi Guthrie, Vice President of Government Affairs, Athens Services.
Councilmember McSweeney joined the meeting at 4:45 p.m.
STUDY SESSION:
SOLID WASTE COLLECTION SERVICES AGREEMENT WITH WASTE
MANAGEMENT
City Manager de Geus introduced the second study session on the Waste Management agreement. He mentioned that pursuant to Council's direction, a mailer was sent to all property owners to ensure they were aware that a new contract with changes to their services and fees was being considered. Staff also provided a summary of the agreement and addressed questions that the City Council asked on July 13, 2022, with assistance from the City's consultant, Carrie Baxter, R3 Consulting Group, Inc., and Doug Corcoran from Waste Management.
Mr. de Geus stated that the purpose of the study session was to provide the City Council another opportunity to ask staff and Waste Management questions and that at tonight's regular Council meeting, staff will be presenting the proposed contract for City Council consideration.
Planning Director Forbes reviewed the terms of the proposed agreement which included: 10-year term with two optional 5-year extensions, exclusive residential and commercial collection service, and provisions that comply with Senate Bill (SB) 1383. Residential rates will be reduced to $29.35 for a three-cart service and frozen for three years. Starting in Year 4, the annual rate increase will be capped at 4% and tied to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for Garbage and Trash collection. Commercial rates will vary based on service but for a standard three cubic yard bin, collected once a week, the rate will be $212.06. Bundled rates included trash, recyclables, and organic waste bins. Commercial rate increases will be capped at 5% annually and tied to CPI for Garbage and Trash collection.
Excess increases can be carried over up to two years.
Existing services to be maintained included: a 10% senior discount, free home compost bins, backyard valet service (free to households with disabled residents and a monthly fee for others), free bulky item pickup twice a year with up to six items in total, and monthly household hazardous waste collection. New services added included: a 10% low-income discount, new waste carts, new kitchen food waste pails on request, curbside holiday tree collection, three free landfill days, two mulch and compost giveaways, and two free paper shredding events.
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STUDY SESSION (continued):
Two primary areas of discussion at the July 13, 2022 Study session, were:
1. Townhome and condo residents - Communication efforts related to rate increases, minimizing impact of rate increases and organic waste
2. Exlusive Commercial collection services - Communication efforts with businesses, comparison with other cities, current open market rates, working with customers to right-size services, and the value of exclusive commercial service on the overall agreement and rates.
Mr. Forbes reported that staff held two meetings with the impacted Homeowner Associations (HOA) and presented the contract terms at the recent Joint City Council HOA Presidents Meeting. All property owners, following the July 13, 2022 Study session, received a mailer about the contract and fees, which was also posted on the City website. Waste Management staff attended two Westlake Village community events in July 2022 to answer resident questions. There will also be ongoing outreach and education from the City and Waste Management as stated in the contract.
Doug Corcoran, Waste Management Director of Public Sector Solutions reported that SB 1383 requires organic services for residential and business accounts. For the impacted HOA's that will experience a rate increase, Waste Management will increase rates over two years. These HOA's have been provided with options on possible rate reductions, by centralized billing and using smaller size carts.
Mr. Corcoran stated that an exclusive commercial franchise supports reduced residential rates due to revenue stability, efficiencies for Waste Management, and provides support for large capital expenditures.
To illustrate the new billing amounts, Mr. Corcoran randomly selected several current commercial accounts and compared existing rates to the proposed rates.
He further noted that customer service will be provided by 160 representatives servicing the Southern California region. He mentioned that customer service representatives are provided "Green Pages" for reference to accurate information about each franchise agreement. Additionally, in Simi Valley, there are five office based representatives and eight field representatives to assist with Westlake Village customers.
Mr. Corcoran provided historical information on how HOA's accounts were managed by Waste Management since 2002, and further stated that Waste Management neglected to align the pricing on a subset of HOA's over the past 20 years to the current residential franchise rates that the majority of Westlake Village residential customers were paying, and that miss-alignment was being corrected in this new contract.
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STUDY SESSION (continued):
Mayor Pro Tem Pearl inquired about the commercial exclusivity component of the agreement and the percentage of businesses with fee increases. Mr. Corcoran estimated that 75% of commercial customers will experience a rate decrease and that without changes to service levels 25% may initially experience a rate increase, however, with the rightsizing of services he estimated that only 10% will likely experience a rate increase.
Mayor Pro Tem Pearl inquired about the decision to renew the current agreement rather than issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) for trash service. Planning Director Forbes reported that staff believed renegotiations with Waste Management was a more prudent approach than issuing an RFP, as the RFP results were unknown, and amounts could have been substantially higher than the negotiated rates. City Manager de Geus further stated that remaining with the waste hauler that the City knows and has worked successfully with for many years, at a time when there are a lot of new laws being implemented regarding how solid waste is to be managed, was an important factor in the decision to negotiate a new contract with Waste Management.
Additional discussion included fees/fines for contamination, non-compliance with SB 1383, and adjusting the rates for the affected HOA's.
ADJOURNMENT:
Meeting adjourned at 6:04 p.m. to the Regular Session scheduled for 6:30 p.m.
Road doe
Brad Halpern, Mayor
Attest:
Antoinettentrans
Antoinette Mann, City Clerk