September 3, 2008
"I actually felt insulted by it as an elected official…" Supervisor Jerry Hill
The agency that oversees trash contracts in southern San Mateo County crossed the line into personal attack when it responded to Allied Waste’s attempts to hold on to its 35-year business, Supervisor Jerry Hill said yesterday.
Hill said the letter from the South Bayside Waste Management Authority was defensive in nature, and sought to unfairly color council’s perspective.
“Allied is relying on unsubstantiated projected cost savings, ill defined plans, and a ‘just trust us’ approach,” said Executive Director Kevin McCarthy in the letter. “They want you to throw out a competitive RFP (request for proposals) process that your agency and 11 others agreed upon.”
“I actually felt insulted by it as an elected official,” said Hill. “We make our decisions based on the facts.”
The letter was written in response to an Aug. 21 letter Allied sent to all council members in each of the cities in the authority. In the letter General Manager Evan Boyd said the company had submitted an alternative proposal that would save about $54 million on the contract, “or an average of $524 per household.”
The waste authority, which negotiates trash contracts on behalf of 10 cities in San Mateo County and unincorporated parts of the county, did not consider the alternative proposal because it did not detail specific exceptions, according to the agency.
In response to Allied’s original letter, McCarthy contacted the companies that had bid on the trash contracts and ask them to write a letter endorsing the process used to award the contracts. “I have a special and awkward request to make,” said McCarthy in the letter to the refuse companies. “Can (you) write a letter stating that, while you were certainly disappointed with the results and you not being selected, you feel the RFP processes were conducted professionally, thoroughly, and with the highest level of transparency and integrity.”McCarthy then used these responses but he failed to acknowledge that they had been solicited, said Hill.
“By these actions,” said Hill in a letter to McCarthy, “I believe that you have called into question the ‘transparency’ of the process and called into question your ability to present unbiased information to the decision makers.”