It’s a Stinky Problem


The biggest “uh-oh” issue of my first couple of weeks on the job is the fact that the County’s Solid Waste hauling contract – essentially the granting of a monopoly by County government for what is now a mandatory service in unincorporated Ada County – will expire shortly. BFI/Allied Waste/Republic (they’ve changed hands several times, but it’s still the same company) has had the contract since 1994.

I was the citizen member on the County’s Solid Waste Contract Advisory Committee when BFI was first chosen. I was a Commissioner in 2002, when the contract was extended. The company has done a good job serving the people of Ada County, but a 14-year run as the sole source provider for a mandatory service is long enough. It’s time to put the contract out for another bid.

So what’s the problem? According to the Landfill Director and the trash hauler’s representatives, if we do put the contract out for bid, they say that rates will increase more than they will if we simply extend the contract for another ten years. To me, this sounds like extortion: give it to us, or we’ll jack up your prices.

It is counter-intuitive to believe that rates will increase if we put a contract out for a bid. It’s also not what I learned in Economics 101 in college. The flip side is the reality that there aren’t a lot of trash haulers in this area — so competition could be limited. There is SSC in Meridian and J & M out in Kuna. There are other large trash haulers in the country, but they do not already have yards established here, from which to run their operations; a factor that could drive up their cost of doing business.

My approach to this situation: I am trying to find out from other trash haulers how much interest there is in bidding on the contract to service unincorporated Ada County. One of the country’s larger publicly traded trash haulers that operates in the Pacific Northwest, Waste Connections, has expressed interest in bidding on the Ada County contract.

In my new position, there are no guarantees. We simply have to make the best decisions we can based on what we know at the time, hope we’ve done the best we can for taxpayers, and move on. If you have any thoughts on whether to extend BFI/Allied Waste/Republic’s contract for another ten years, or whether to re-bid the contract anew, please do not hesitate to let my colleagues and me know. You can reach me via the link here on my blog, by my county e-mail at sharonu@adaweb.net, by letter to the Board of Ada County Commissioners, 200 W. Front Street, Boise, ID, 83702, or by telephone call to (208) 287-7001. Your input is always valued. Thank you.

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