Following this week’s city council meeting held on Monday, September 23, the council decided on the city’s waste management service contract just days ahead of the current contract’s expiration date.
According to Mayor Jerry Beech during Monday’s meeting, in January the council had decided to collect bids and cancel the current contract in place.
While the council had hoped to collect bids from other waste management services, Beech stated that COVID-19 brought up the problem for other waste management services to acquire the needed equipment.
Beech said that any interested waste management services would not have enough time to get prepared to service Cordell as the current contract expires at the end of the month.
“Whenever I found out basically that [other waste management services] can’t bid. They can’t get equipment. They can’t get geared up. I called [Republic Services] to see what we might be able to do,” Beech said.
David Baker was present at the meeting to represent Republic Services, Cordell’s current waste management services, as they discussed options that can be taken to continue having them service Cordell.
Baker agreed that the effort it would take for a new company to acquire equipment to service Cordell would be lengthy and could potentially lead to the citizens facing the consequences of changing providers at this time. “It has been made apparent to me that
“It has been made apparent to me that there are some things that the city wants from Republic Services right? That you think will better serve your community,” Baker noted. “We’re open to those things. We want to have those discussions and we want to make this work for you guys and we want to make it work for us.”
Councilmember Steve Mclaughlin brought changes that the city wants such as the closing time for residents to be able to dump things off. A time that Mclaughlin said was “not working” since many residents are still at work during the current hours.
An alternative brought up by Mclaughlin was to open up on a Saturday for residents to dump things off. A move that Baker said they are open to.
“Basically, the bottom line guys is that these guys are here,” Beech said.
“We’re looking at ten days and there are no other options. It sounds like that [Republic Services is] willing to work with us on other stuff.”
Ultimately, the council decided that Cordell will extend their agreement with Republic Services as their waste management services while the city and Republic Services work out any issues they may have.