Solid Waste meeting - Cinco de Mayo!

The Solid Waste Chairman, Matt Altieri, and I met tonight (Decaprio absent) for a Solid Waste meeting. The discussion was about the trash hauling contract.

Matt and I have the same basic concern - can the low bidder do the job? Unfortunately, no one in the room had really any comfort in answering that question yet. But the TM and his staff are planning to meet with principal of the low bidder (Coastal Sanitation) in the near future to get a sense of their operational and financial capabilities.

Some random comments from the meeting:

1) Staff made it clear that Coastal Sanitation has not been around very long, but the principal (Richard Peterson) has been in the business for a long time.

2) In a previous post I mentioned that I wasn't sure why the trash hauling's actual costs - $865,000 - were different from the bid offers - $823,000. The explanation is:

a) each month there is a $2500 fee that needs to be "backed out" from the bill. (I forget the reason for that number, but the explanation made sense.) So over 12 months, that's a $30,000 difference; and

b) the $823,000 is based on a certain number of building / dumpster pickups. As the town grows - as houses are built - the trash hauling fee increases.

Anyway, this year's fees through April are about $730,000. So you can add another $75,000 for each of the next two months and the annual trash hauling fee will likely be around $880,000. And with a 2.3% increase for next year... it would have been around $900,000 for 2009/2010. FWIW.

3) Matt and I agreed that with the end of the current contract looming, we need to fast track a decision.

4) Coastal Sanitation got recommended by the City of Bridgeport.

5) Here's another breakdown of the bids, including a more details on the school component:I don't recall where the trash budget currently falls - town side or school side. But it should probably be on the school side so we are spending more per student... we all know the benefits of spending more per student!

Tim White