Santa Ana City Council Extends Trash Contract for 22 Years

SEATTLE (Waste Advantage): Santa Ana City Council members, following a decades-old pattern of not seeking competitive bids for its home and business trash collection contract, have delayed competition to the point where Waste Management, Inc.’s contract from 1993 – which was originally set to expire in 1998 – will continue until the year 2020.

In addition, the city is charging residents millions of dollars in fees on trash bills and transferring it to the city general fund, which pays for police and other services, according to Councilwoman Michele Martinez, who said it’s a violation of state law.

“It’s a Ponzi scheme,” Martinez said in an interview, referring to an illegal business enterprise. “We’ve been charging into an enterprise fund, then transferring [that] money to use for general fund services without going to the voters. That’s illegal. It’s criminal, it’s wrong.”

City staff declined to make someone available Monday to answer questions about the contract, including why it’s been extended over 20 years beyond its original expiration date and what the basis is for transferring $6 million per year from trash service revenues to the city’s general fund.

Mayor Miguel Pulido, who is the only council member to have served since the trash contract was awarded a quarter century ago, declined to comment for this article when reached by phone.

The no-bid extension and money transfer issues are among several, including council resistance to a ban on speaking with potential vendors during the upcoming bidding process, that the council faced as it voted Dec. 5 to extend the Waste Management contract another two years, to mid-2020.

The last time it was put out to competitive bid was 1993, and the contract was scheduled to expire five years later, in 1998, when it could be opened up again to proposals from other interested companies.

But instead of opening it up to bidding, council members went on to extend it to the point where the original five-year contract is now a 27-year contract. Waste Management and its subsidiaries have been Santa Ana’s trash hauler since the early 1960s, and the contract only went out to bid once, in 1993.

Courtesy: https://wasteadvantagemag.com