After placing the matter on the agenda for a second time, the Sunflower County Board of Supervisors again bypassed a decision to contract with a company to pick up the county’s residential trash.
After receiving bids from Arrow Disposal Services Inc., and Waste Pro USA at a previous meeting, the county leaders tabled the matter because they could not agree then to accept the lowest bid, which was $13.75 per household, per month, submitted by ADSI.
At that meeting, District 1 Supervisor Glenn Donald cited past good performance records with Waste Pro and was adamant that the lowest bid was not necessarily the best one. Waste Pro’s submission was 64 cents higher per home, per month than its competitor.
The decision was again tabled at Monday’s session even though President Riley Rice opened the segment by stating, “We have already discussed this, I think everybody have made up their minds, we’re going to go with the lowest bid.”
But before Rice could call for the vote, Donald requested permission to ask Attorney Johnny McWilliams a question, which was, whether certain necessities such as the provision of a front-end loader to pick up dumpsters at county buildings was spelled out in the proposal.
McWilliams said the published request did not reference any specific equipment only weekly residential pick-ups and supplying 96-gallon containers. However, he indicated that it did mention additional considerations being given to companies that provide solid waste collection and disposal to the public departments and locations of Sunflower County without extra charge.
Notwithstanding, the quoted prices were based only on the residential service.
Donald said, "I asked the question because every other company we've had, they pick up those dumpsters for us."
He then asked ADSI representative Jimmie Moore if his company provided that particular option and if they had the equipment to render the service, they did not. “No, it was in our proposal that we would provide a price to you for that. The number of dumpsters and the frequency was not specified in the notice," Moore said.
He added that supplying the service would create an additional charge to the county and although a third party would be involved the county would only have to deal with his company. Moore assured them that regardless of what the county needs, his company could supply it through their subcontractors.
Waste Pro Municipal Marketing Director Lori Cate then expressed that the dumpster pickups are included in their proposal at no extra charge. Donald then asserted, "It's not apples to apples if we get that service free and now we have to pay additional for the service."
McWilliams then asked about private customers in the county who may have the same type of commercial dumpsters and Moore stated that they do not directly provide commercial services and that like now, it is up to the customers to make their own arrangements. “We specialize in residential curbside collection," Moore said.
The decision was postponed until ADSI could have an opportunity to re-present their proposal after taking in account the number of dumpsters, the size and the number of pickups per week for the county’s containers.
Moore said he was unable to provide a revised cost without the requested data. He reasoned that if his price, including the dumpster pick-up, came back less than Waste Pro’s it would still be better for the county. Rice emphasized that the decision to table it was in the interest of fairness.
In addition to the reevaluation of the costs, it appears that the county is already under contract of sort with Waste Pro, at least for the next two months, whether they want to or not.
The county has been under contract with Resourceful Environmental Services for solid waste collection services and that agreement expires at the end of April, but RES did not submit a new proposal.
Waste Pro announced that they have purchased the Sunflower County solid waste accounts from RES and will be collecting the customers’ trash for the duration of the contract.
Cate said that as of late Friday afternoon, Waste Pro officially began servicing all of RES’s customers in the county. “Anything that was formerly RES is now Waste Pro, so basically all of those customers, those will be serviced by us now,” she said.
Moore then asked if the members had approved the switch and McWilliams said, "It has not been before us except by word of mouth." According to the attorney, they have not heard anything from RES and there has been no communication with them at all with regard to the change.
He then added, "Until we do, we're going to make our checks to RES that's who we contracted with," McWilliams said, “We're going to make our payments like we're contractually supposed to.”
The matter will be on the March 16 agenda.
