Oxford Village residents will see a 20 percent reduction in their monthly trash bill beginning Sept 1 as council last week authorized negotiation of a five-year contract with Republic Services, headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.
Under Republic’s proposal, which was the lowest price submitted, village households would pay a starting monthly rate of $9.89 in 2015-16 for the weekly curbside collection of trash, recycling and yard waste. After that, the monthly rate would increase by 3 percent annually until it tops out at $11.15 in 2019-20.
Village households currently pay $12.40 per month for rubbish collection provided by the Sterling Heights-based Rizzo Environmental Services.
The village’s contract with Rizzo expires Aug. 31.
In service as a corporation since 1998, Republic employs more than 30,000 people across the country and serves businesses and households in 40 states, plus Puerto Rico. Republic has more than 13 million customers.
Republic, per the village’s request, will be providing every village household with a 65-gallon wheeled recycling cart at no extra charge. The carts were included in the proposal price.
Although four proposals were submitted for the residential contract, council’s decision boiled down to a choice between Republic, which has a facility in Pontiac, and the Oxford-based Odd Job Disposal.
Odd Job submitted the second lowest proposal with a fixed monthly rate of $11.50 per household for all five years of the contract.
However, Odd Job’s proposal did not include 65-gallon recycling carts for all village households as requested.
Village Manager Joe Young told council that for Odd Job to provide these carts, it would cost an additional $60 per residence.
‘The reason why we did not add that in there (is) we’ve found that a lot of people don’t like (big) carts for recycling,? explained Aaron Walter, one of Odd Job’s owners. ‘We just had a subdivision down in Oakland Township that requested 116 cans for trash and 116 for recycling, and more than half of (the residents) decided that they didn’t want the can for recycling; they just wanted it for trash. To each his own whether or not they want to recycle that much.?
Councilman Bryan Cloutier made a motion to negotiate a contract with Odd Job, but it failed in a 3-2 vote.
Voting for it were Cloutier and Councilwoman Rose Bejma, while dissenting votes were cast by village President Sue Bossardet along with councilmembers Maureen Helmuth and Tom Kennis.
Bossardet then made a motion to go with Republic and it passed 3-2 with Cloutier and Bejma casting the dissenting votes.
The other two companies that submitted proposals were Rizzo and Advanced Disposal, based in Ponte Vedra, Florida.
Rizzo offered to continue collecting the village’s residential waste for a monthly rate of $12.50 per household for the next three years. After that, the price would increase to $13 per month for the contract’s final two years.
Earlier this year, Rizzo offered to lower its monthly rate to a fixed $10.90 for five years, if the village agreed to extend its current contract.
‘The Rizzo Services representative stated that the proposed five-year fixed rate of $10.90 would be only valid for an extension of the existing contract,? wrote Young in an April 13 memo to council.
Instead of simply extending Rizzo’s contract, council opted to issue a request for proposals.
Young told this reporter Rizzo’s $10.90 price didn’t include providing a 65-gallon recycling cart for every village residence.
Factoring in that additional cost increased Rizzo’s proposed price to $12.50/$13, the manager explained.
Advance’s proposal started out at a monthly rate of $19.68 per household, then increased each year until it topped out at $21.30 in the contract’s fifth year.
Advance’s proposal also included providing a 65-gallon recycling cart for every village household.
Following its decision regarding the residential contract, council voted 4-1 to award a five-year commercial contract to Republic Services, which offered the lowest price of the six trash haulers that submitted proposals. Cloutier cast the lone dissenting vote.
Rizzo currently holds the village’s commercial waste contract. It expires Aug. 31.
Right now, the village bills businesses for waste collection at a monthly rate of $24.50 per unit. The number of units each business is assigned, which ranges from one to three, depends on the type of business and the amount of waste it generates, Young explained.
Under Republic’s proposal, the village’s monthly unit rate would increase to $29 in the first year and go up $1 each year until it tops out at $33 in the fifth year, according to a June 19 memo Young submitted to council.
Downtown Oxford currently has 14 garbage dumpsters that are emptied four times per week, plus two cardboard dumpsters and 10 recycling toters that are emptied on a weekly basis.