City's proposal to drop Recology angers local labor and environmental activists
The issue will be discussed at tonight's city council meeting
Local activists have been scrambling over the last few days to torpedo a proposal to drop Recology as Sebastopol’s solid waste hauler. A city staff report on the issue, which will be discussed at tonight’s city council meeting, recommends awarding the city’s solid waste contract to a smaller company, Sonoma County Resource Recovery (SCRR).
The staff report on the proposed solid waste contract with SCRR, posted on the city website on Thursday, got a swift response from Logan Harvey, Senior General Manager of Recology.
“The analysis is incomplete and results in a recommendation to award the contract to the higher-priced proposal,” Harvey claimed. “Unfortunately, the City’s analysis takes into account only minor differences in garbage collection costs between Recology and SCRR’s proposals. It ignores the vast difference in costs between state-mandated diversion services for recycling and compost,” he wrote “When a more holistic rate analysis is conducted, we estimate that SCRR’s proposal actually costs $786,000 more a year when compared to Recology’s proposal.”
But it isn’t only the manager from one of the competing companies who has concerns about the staff report. A phalanx of well-known community activists has also opposed the switch from Recology to SCRR.
“While I think it was the right thing to do to open this contract up to competition, and while I recognize and appreciate the work of the staff, the council ad hoc committee, and others who have spent a lot of time working on this, I think the city would be making a mistake by ending its relationship with Recology,” Woody Hastings, a former member of the city’s Climate Action Committee, wrote in a letter to the council. (Hastings acknowledged in his letter that he lives outside of town and won’t be personally affected by the change.)
“I think this is a terrible idea environmentally, economically, and from a labor standpoint,” said Sunny Galbraith, one of Sebastopol’s most ardent zero waste proponents. “I am frustrated that the council is doing this at the first meeting right after the holidays—everyone was taking a holiday break from emails. It feels rushed and sneaky.”
According to Galbraith, Hastings and others, there are several problems with choosing SCRR over Recology. In a Google doc circulating around town, opponents of the switch make the following arguments:
They say SCRR will vastly increase the total service rates for nearly all commercial and multi-family customers by significantly raising rates for recycling and compost services, which will disincentivize participation in these vital programs.
They claimed Recology’s proposed rates are lower for the majority of residential customers in Sebastopol—a claim the city denies.
They note that SCRR does not have a recycling facility in Sonoma County and takes recyclables out of the County to facilities that have less processing capacity. This will have a major impact on the City’s recycling rate and greenhouse gas emissions.
Hastings and longtime labor activist Marty Bennett also emphasize Recology’s labor bonafides. “Recology is an employee-owned company unionized within the Teamsters Union. SCRR is not unionized at all. Contracting with SCRR would be a huge step in the wrong direction in terms of labor standards,” Hastings wrote in his letter to the council.
The city council has received over 60 letters from residents and businesses concerned about the change away from Recology. While many of those letters asked the city to retain Recology as its waste hauler, others asked that the city simply put the brakes on the process until the discrepancies could be resolved.
What’s in the SCRR contract?
The proposed SCRR contract has a 15-year term from July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2040, with two five-year extensions at the city’s option. According to the staff report, the contract includes “bundled rates that include, at minimum, a baseline level of recycling and organics services for all customers, with the flexibility to provide more as needed.”
In addition, the SCRR contract contains the following new and enhanced services for customers and the community:
New curbside holiday tree pickup service for single-family and multi-family customers.
New bulky waste pick-ups for single-family residents included in the monthly rates. (The new offering is up to two pick-ups per year at no additional charge; residents previously paid directly for this service offering.)
New bulky waste pick-up options for multi-family customers, who previously did not have access to this service, also included in the monthly rates (up to two pick-ups per year, coordinated by the property manager, at no additional charge).
New solid waste services and portable toilet event support for City-sponsored events (including events hosted by non-profits), up to $20,000 annually.
New citywide abandoned/illegal dumping removal assistance collection within 24 hours of request.
Enhanced street sweeping services (i.e., now including storm-drain vactoring) services.
One-time funding for improved downtown waste containers totaling $25,000.
Bulky item collection for City facilities (up to two pick-ups per facility per year at no additional charge).
Concrete collection at the City’s Corporation Yard up to ten times per year at no additional charge.
In addition, SCRR is offering $200,000 to reimburse the city for the costs of conducting the RFP process—which is common in such contracts. They are also offering to reimburse the city for the $75,000 in transition costs that the city will pay to R3.)
A comparison of the rates
On pages 6 and 7 of the staff report, there is a comparison of the “Option 2: Three-year phase-in” rates for SCRR and Recology. The report has two different charts—one for SCRR and one for Recology—but this makes it very difficult to compare the companies’ rates. In the chart below, we have combined these charts so you can see a side-by-side comparison. We have tinted in red the areas where Recology’s rates are cheaper.
The SCRR rates include a base level of recycling and composting (i.e., yard waste) but SCRR charges more than Recology for additional recycling and organic waste. Proponents of Recology say this will make rates go up for businesses and multi-family properties and disincentivize recycling and composting.
Doug Bishop, one of the owners of Sebastopol Hardware, wrote the council about his concerns. He said his business is facing a potential increase of $30,116 a year with SRCC.
“It appears that the overall savings for residential customers is negligible at best, but the changes in the policies for MFD [multi-family dwellings] and commercial recyclables will create huge expense increases for businesses.
Residential Savings based on Option 1 rate proposal is an average of $1.36/month depending on container size
Residential Savings by 2027 based on Option 2 is an average of $5.09/month depending on container size.
Whereas, the abolishment of the current “legacy practice” on recycling and organics services will create significant expense increases for businesses who are struggling to survive in a legislative environment that is already anti-business. Under this new proposal, for Sebastopol Hardware, our rates for recycling will increase from $1,224/month to $3,914/month, a $30,116 annual increase. Once again, businesses are bearing the brunt of cost increases. You are biting the hand that feeds you.”
Councilmember Sandra Maurer, who is a member of the city council’s Solid Waste Ad Hoc, has been deeply involved in the negotiations both with Recology and SCRR. She’s also an environmentalist who was a member of the city’s Climate Action Committee and has been a board member for Zero Waste Sonoma for the past two years.
“SCRR is committed to helping right-size garbage service including recycling and compost,” she told the Sebastopol Times. “No multi-family and business customers will be charged new additional service rates without first having the opportunity to adjust their service levels to provide the right levels of service and cost.”
Maurer said the ad hoc and city staff are convinced that the lower base costs for garbage services (which include base levels of recycling and organics service) will result in lower overall rates for the majority of customers.
Prices are going up either way
You may have noticed in the chart above that no matter which company the city chooses, rates will be going up.
The reason the city decided to put the waste hauling contract up for bid in the first place is that, back in February 2024, Recology suggested garbage rate increases of 30% for residential users and 23% for commercial users. Regarding the failed negotiations with Recology, the R3 presentation PowerPoint presentation for this evening notes, “City was not agreeable to Recology’s final rate proposal, which amounted to a 57% increase in rates from July 1, 2024, through July 1, 2027.”
The city was wrestling with Recology over future rate increases at the same time—in the spring of 2024—that it was making the unpopular decision to increase water and sewer rates.
In response, the council voted to put out an RFP and hire a consultant, R3, to help negotiate with potential waste haulers. Two companies responded to that RFP—Recology and SCRR.
The contract with SCRR, laid out in the staff report, is the result of that company’s negotiations with R3 and the work of the council’s Solid Waste Ad Hoc committee, consisting of councilmembers Maurer and Jill McLewis.
At the meeting tonight, assuming the city goes forward with the SCRR contract, the council will need to choose between two rate-increase options:
Option 1: One-time adjustment effective July 1, 2025, with new rates at an increase of 15.8% compared to current rates, followed by annual indexed rate adjustments in future years.
Option 2: Three-year stepped-in adjustments, starting July 1, 2025, with new rates at an increase of 5% compared to current rates, followed by 9.8% increases on July 1, 2026, and July 1, 2027. Adjustment effective July 1, 2028, would be per the annual indexed rate adjustment plus 2%, with annual adjustments thereafter being only per the annual indexed rate adjustment methodology
The city sticks to its guns
In response to the community outcry and Recology’s claims, there was an emergency meeting of the Solid Waste Ad Hoc on Monday afternoon. The committee and the staff emerged from that meeting more convinced than ever that SCRR was the right choice.
“The ad hoc committee’s reason for choosing SCRR was to obtain the best service at the best rates for our residents and businesses. We believe we have done that. The ad hoc committee is in full agreement that SCRR is the best choice,” Councilmember Maurer wrote the Sebastopol Times after the meeting.
“I studied the proposals very carefully,” she said. “Although the scoring for both was relatively close, the ad-hoc committee was in full agreement to switch to SCRR. They are smaller, have a better service model, and they were more responsive to our needs. Their proposed rates are below Recology, and they are committed to helping residents and businesses right-size their containers. Throughout the process, SCRR demonstrated—and we believe—they are a better fit for Sebastopol.”
Now all that Maurer et al have to do is prove to their fellow councilmembers—and the hordes of Recology fans in town—that the city would be making the right choice in choosing SCRR.
Recology had the opportunity to negotiate last spring. Recology believes they were losing money on the contract the took over from the prior vendor. Their attitude is that they should be able to make up for that lost revenue in the new contract; Sebastopol rate payers should make up for their mistake. Only a monopoly thinks like this. The City Council committee and City staff put a lot of work into ensuring and fair process to pick a vendor, I support their conclusion to switch to a new vendor.
I'm in favor of keeping the Recology contract. I sent my concerns to all the council members to this email address: citycouncil@cityofsebastopol.gov.