Immediate Fallout Due To Controversial Vote On New Waste Management Contract
David Lybrand, a founding member of the City of Key West’s five-year old Sustainability Advisory Board steps down in reaction to the City Commission’s controversial decision to disregard City staff’s and the advisory board’s recommendations when awarding a new solid waste contract. Below is his resignation letter tendered to Commissioner Teri Johnston and the City Commission yesterday.
May 8, 2014
Key West Commissioner Teri Johnston and the Key West City Commission
Key West, Florida
Teri:
Tonight’s Sustainability Advisory Board meeting completes 5 years since you appointed me as a founding member of the board. I have participated in more SAB meetings than anyone and feel good about what the board has accomplished toward improving many aspects of our City’s sustainability, as well as its GREEN influencing on other actions the City has taken. I was looking forward to continuing to do what I can to help the City progress from its unsustainable ways.
However the action by the City Commission this week to grossly ignore the SAB’s – as well as City staff’s – long and hard-fought recommendation for moving forward on waste handling in favor of keeping an “old buddy” around have disheartened me (to say the least). The fact that the maneuver used to do so also killed a key WORKING sustainability improvement (the abject reversal of our now smoothly operating once-weekly waste pick-up system that has done so much to improve our dismal recycling rate) makes it even worse.
There is just SO MUCH wrong with this action. It has grossly stifled my belief in our City government’s ability to effect positive change. Indeed it is a gross step backward to the bad-old-days where political friendship trumps doing the right thing. I had really thought that we have moved beyond that here in Key West, but now I see that I was over-optimistic.
Hence I find that I can no longer be an effective contributor to this process. It’s bad enough to have SAB recommendations ignored for specious reasons (e.g., HARC’s refusal to accept the validity of white roofs), but when cronyism takes precedence over positivity, there’s little hope that the city will move forward. I cannot maintain my motivation to exert the effort required to perform on the SAB with such diminished hope.
Consequently, with enduring respect to YOU and to the other members of the Sustainability Advisory Board, as of tonight’s meeting I hereby submit my resignation from the board.
David Lybrand
How about HARC/the city’s aversion to the city going solar? How about cisterns for collecting rain water, at least for irrigation and washing cars, trucks, etc.? How about recycling the city’s treated waste water for irrigation and washing cars, trucks, etc., instead of injecting it into deep wells? How about mandatory recycling: for example, if a waste pick up crew sees a property owner did not separate garbage and yard waste and recyclables, the waste pick up crew doesn’t pick any of it up? Imagine the commotion the neighbors would make against their un-green, stinky neighbor?
I attended the city commission meeting. I felt weekly pick up should stay in place, because it encouraged recycling.
I felt what City Commissioner Tony Yaniz voiced: it turned out to be a mistake to put the waste contract out just based on price.
A citizen speaker said he was a financial numbers guy, and he’d been through Advanced Disposal’s financial statements, and they had lost money for several years through 2013, 2014 results not yet published; and they had a great deal of debt, and he wondered how they were going to pay it back? And based on Advanced’s financials,the city should not accept Advanced’s bid.
He said that after city staff had stated that Advanced Disposal had been investigated, it was a good, solid company, had a good reputation. No one from Advanced disputed his comments on Advanced’s annual losses and very large debt.
It sounded from a number of city staff comments that Advanced Disposal intended to use very large waste hauling trucks to pick up waste in Key West, and such trucks only have one operator, thus are cheaper to operate. A Waste Management representative said they have the same trucks, but intentionally do not use the in Key West, because of the narrow streets in Old Town.
Pressed about that from the dais, an Advanced representative did some hemming and hawing. Then, he said said Advanced could use smaller waste haulers. The rub, it was said from the dais, Advanced would have to charge the city more to use the smaller haulers; the contract was negotiable if the city accepted Advanced’s bid.
Commissioner Mark Rossi made some commotion about Advanced’s bid being negotiable, AFTER it was accepted by the city.
Also, city staff said Advanced yard waste bid was considerably higher than Waste Management’s, and the more yard waste collected, the more Advanced would be paid than Waste Management would be paid.
What had bugged me for some time was the city was not, still is not, willing to pay to have yard waste composted locally. I said that during citizen comments, and that hauling yard waste to the mainland is not growing greener, and that I hope the city will pay more to have yard waste composted locally, and citizens can go pick up the compost and use it on their yards and shrubs. The city can do the same.
Then, there was the transfer station, which both companies bid to operate, or not. The bids were considerably higher for operating the transfer station, which some city commissioners said the city needed to get out of doing for various reasons – city employee safety, city liability, etc.
Perhaps with the transfer station, Waste Management’s bid was the low bid. It seemed to me that it was very close.
During citizen comments, I said, the city pays Ed Swift $500,000 a year to haul cruise ship passengers from the outer mole into Old Town, and which was more important? Hauling cruise ship passengers or garbage pick up?
I said, the people picking up our garbage are the most important people in the city. More important even than the Mayor, the Fire Chief, and the Chief of Police, for without garbage pick up, the city would have to be evacuated.
It does not look to me like the “un-green” company didn’t get the bid. It looks to me like this is all about money, and I’m not convinced Advanced’s was the lowest bid, with the transfer station thrown in.
And, I’m not convinced Advanced is as sound a company as Waste Management.
And, I’m not convinced that, if Advanced had gotten the bid, the cost of its services would not have increased during subsequent negotiations.
I hope the city does not use that method of soliciting bids in the future.
As someone pointed out during citizen comments, the city and FDOT went with the lowest bidder for North Roosevelt Blvd reconstruction, but the second low bidder, not all that much higher, as I recall the citizen’s comments, would have done the job in less than half the time.
I applaud your resignation from the committee because it brought more attention to the issue, which is important. A front page story in the Citizen should keep the discussion going.
While I have not studied the ins and outs of the contracts nor the companies involved I am very disappointed about the return to two pickups per week. It’s urgent that we have fewer truck trips and that people throw away less. It’s appalling that the cities and the county don’t get that we must reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions significantly and right now. One pickup per week is a small step in the right direction.