Travis County Commssioners Court
December 17, 2002
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Item 40
Item 40, approve contract award for refuse collection i.f.b. Bo 30007-oj to the low bidder, waits management of Texas. Purchasing staff was here. This is on the agenda for us to approve the low bidder on this basically bid item. [inaudible] earlier. We would be happy to get your comments. My understanding of the law is that we would have to disqualify waste management in order to go to the second low bidder. And is the second low bidder b.f.i. Or t.d.s.?
>> t.d.s.
>> to bypass the low bidder, we would have to disqualify that bidder. Okay?
>> good afternoon or good morning. My name is trek english, and I'm here to protest the award of this contract to a company just because they are the low bidder. I understand how the law is written, but I think you need to research just how many contracts waste management has been awarded in the last three years just because they underbid everyone else in the industry at every contract. No one else can do it for that low price and that's how they get away with underbidding. Now, don't you think there's a correlation between the low bids and the odor problems? I certainly do. Your own staff has witnessed these nuisance conditions and possible violations of the health and safety code. They have to be the low bidder. They have to justify their existence in this county. Especially since they didn't get the contract for the landfill -- for the -- for the bulk of the city's waste. They have to make it -- they have to explain to us where the Travis County waste is coming from in their landfill. We've been claiming most of their waste is coming from out of sown so it is -- so it is -- out of town, so it's important for them to prove they have local contracts. But to get local contracts just by underbidding every time so they can get a bulk of the waste in this county and then have tremendous odors escaping their site, and if it isn't them, I want to know why b.f.i. Was pointing the finger at them last Thursday. Because I'm tired of going back and forth of them pointing the finger at each other. It's not we've cleaned up our act, it's them. Well, if it's them, why are we giving them more contracts? And I personally still think that -- I have concerns about their site having serious problem and what could cause a liability for the county. Now, I would like to take this opportunity to mention something that was totally absurd, unsafe and outrageous last Thursday. We were told we had -- since we weren't happy with what tceq had done, which isn't true, we're not unhappy, we don't think it's strong enough, that we should work with the landfills themselves. And I believe your staff was there present. Now, what they expect us to do is to call them, and you have to idea that the odors are always happening in the middle of the night on cold nights so we have to call the pager, wait for someone from the landfill to call us back, trips over there in the middle of the night, and walk in the middle of the landfill with landfill personnel to find out what is the cause of the odor. So not only are we the victim, we have to solve the problem and at the same time endanger our lives by going through in the middle of the night with personnel we don't know because they keep shifting personnel every month. Half the time you don't even know who their new guy is. And I can't believe that the county would actually endorse this. So I'm hoping that you will say no because I personally don't think that's safe on our part to even come up with this idea that we have to work out a solution by meeting them in the middle of the night. And I did specify that to mr. Gosselink and he did say yes, that's what he expected me to do. So I will ask you to please reconsider. At least write your contracts with some clause in it that will protect you. The county. From any liability based on insufficient monitoring or based on -- I mean, if you want language that your legal department can review, that's fine. I didn't come prepared for that. I just feel that at this point it's a serious problem in the northeast quadrant. The odors are back -- they are back, they are still here, very strong. And you should not give them any more waste that's going to create even more odors. Thank you.
>> thank you, trek.
>> judge, commissioners, I'm mark maxey and I would like to protest the award of these contracts to waste management as well. This company has a history, is -- shows many, many atrocities all over the world. And as far as I'm concerned they should be disbarred from doing business everywhere. But in many places they have been. The -- an environmental attorney, gary abe ram, states any governmental licensing or permitting body has the authority to -- to hold the license or permit. Although many states have bad actor statutes granting authority to so inquire into specific areas, usually hazardous waste facilities, the authority is ultimately rooted in common law pre-dating and not superseded by a statute. This authority goes back to the first licenses granted by william the conqueror and has been recognized ever since. Fitness to hold a permit relates to the applicant trustworthiness to apply with the terms and conditions of the permit. A record of past fraud in the same or similar regulatory area may be used as grounds for exercising reasonable discretion to deny a permit. Despite the monitoring of the industrial waste unit at the waste management site, there still may be a preponderance of evidence suggesting a steady migration of toxic material out of the site. The city of Austin did not award contracts to w.m.i. After their consultants raised concerns about the environmental problems from the industrial waste unit. And lastly, in terms of competition, I suggest that competition is the best thing for long-term pricing for our citizens and that this lower price that's proposed by w.m.i. Is a temporary measure meant to decrease competition over the long haul. Do not play right into their hands by accepting these contracts. And thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> my name is melanie mcaffee and I too am here to protest the awarding of the contract to them. And I would like to encourage you to be very proactive in your decision. Several issues have come to mind. One, sitting here all morning hearing about judge Davis and his -- commissioner Sonleitner's response to him about his creative thinking and what he has done in his legal career. I would challenge you also to do the same. That there's a big decision to be made here and that it's important to keep common sense and the big picture in mind. That for you to look at only the bottom line and the lowest price and not to consider all the things that trek and mark have said is short-sightedness. Also, I would like to ask if in this process you have gone and analyzed the odor complaints. How many, do you know exactly how many? Do you know how many citizens? Do you know how long it's taken? Have you looked at that data and weighed it in? I would like to know how much analysis of it you have done. I know you are tired of it, but as far as documenting it and truly analyzing it, I don't know if that's been done or not. Also, there have been many allegations that I think need to be looked at, talked about and considered. Also, I have done a lot of research and study on what other commissioners have done -- commissioners courts around the country have done, and I think that you need to be thinking about the trash issue and not just the lowest bid, but how it's disposed of. I have learned a lot about the history of landfilling. And what some of the things that I have learned is that it is not a static process; that we are not at a one solution that is now works wonderful. That is not the truth and I don't know how much documentation or research your staff has done about the future of landfilling. And I think that in my research what i've learned that composting is a very important part. And for the county to ignore how they are disposing of their trash, that needs to be entered in. If you enter into a contract with a company That has no composting facilities, that needs to be looked at. The county needs to be just as proactive as the city in how to deal with their waste. You too need to be concerned with what you do with it. And just to bury it when you know that there are that many problems is not responsible on your part.
>> melanie, i've got a quick question for you. If these bids were within a couple of -- even 5 percentage points, that would be a whole lot easier in terms of that you are willing to pay more and have some discretion here. But there's a $60,000 difference between these two bids. It's a 40% difference. Not a small amount of money by anybody's stretch of the imagination. I'm just wondering -- and again, that would be consistent because I believe waste management has a good portion of the county contracts right now related to what those [inaudible] the county like everybody else has garbage. While we divert a lot of stuff to other kinds of things like recycling, there's still a certain amount of stuff that has to go someplace. What would you say related to the huge difference between the two bids about why one versus the other? It's a $60,000 difference and a 40% difference in terms of the bids. And their numbers are higher than last year in terms of what I'm looking for in terms of what we spent on this contract last year. So that's a lot of money.
>> to them it's pennies. And so that's what I was trying to state is that $60,000 to them -- I mean they are in the long haul they want less competition. If you look world wide, there's very few players in the waste field.
>> but 60,000 is a lot of money here in Travis County.
>> right. And I guess --
>> I'm asking to you state the case for why would you say, if we even had the ability to disqualify a bid, why would you say it's worth $60,000 more in terms of going with the second low bidder on this case? Because I have yet to hear anything to disqualify them as the low bidder. They've met all of our legal requirements, I believe.
>> did you ask them to explain how they can have such a low bid or actually ask the other two companies to tell you how they arrive at their figure compared to -- can they do it for such a low bid? Because we went through the same thing with the city's contract and at the time it was like a 39 cents a month difference between the two landfills.
>> thousands and thousands and thousands of these bids and I don't think we ask a question about why somebody can create a shoe that costs less money or launder uniforms for less money. I mean it's just not something that goes into the bidding process.
>> if the uniform is destroyed in the process, after a while you no longer award the contract to that --
>> but the county purchasing act is quite specific about what you go through to go through the bids. And mr. Holder, I don't know if there is anything here, is there anything where they have not met the requirements of the county purchasing act in terms of how we award bids?
>> it's all explained.
>> but you are looking at it totally from the dollar standpoint. And we're saying that's not the entire issue.
>> see, I really don't know exactly -- every time this thing has gone before the commissioners court, i've voted no. And my whole point in that that was I can't see the county contribute to go the problems of odor by vaitionz, and -- violations, and i've heard several alleged odor violations and I have even witnessed odor violations out there myself. Maybe the difference in price may be that some folks have better odor control features than others. Where you control odor that's being emitted from a landfill. That may be part of the cost. I don't know that. But I think it's something that we need to look at very seriously as far as odor control that's emitted from those landfills. That's very clear and simple to me. And again, this came up before and I voted no, and of course the same concerns I had then were the health benefits of the community, same things this morning, health benefits. What I would like to do, in my opinion, if this could be postponed for a week and looked at and see what we can do about some odor controls here. Apparently it doesn't -- it's not getting clear out there to those folks that are dealing with landfill issues that we have some serious odor complaints from folks and the quality of life I think it's jeopardized and I think it should be afforded equally to everybody in this county, I don't care where you live. In my opinion, I would like for maybe this to go for a week maybe looking for modifications on odor control. I don't know. I think there's somewhere along the line we're missing the mark, and I'm not going to support this particular contract the way it exists now, as I vowed no before, I'm not going to support this. I would like to make a motion to postpone this for a week and look at some modifications as far as possibly looking for addressing some type of odor control, which is a concern for everybody. In this county. So there's no problem for me to do that. And if there's something could be done, I'm going to vote no against it again.
>> when is this contract expire?
>> December 31st.
>> I can't find it --
>> you had it in here. December 31st.
>> yeah.
>> so commissioner, are you asking for your one-week courtesy?
>> yes, I sure am, judge. Let's look for some --
>> grant a one-week courtesy. I suggest you need to give us in writing grounds for disqualification that you see. Between now and next Tuesday, if we are expected to act on it.
>> okay.
>> commissioner, I share your opinions, and I will say that I may ultimately -- I mean end up voting for this thing only because I'm pushing the corner with this amount of dollars. But I will say for the record that I am going to somehow get to the bottom of this with the odor, and I'm going to work with commissioner Davis, and I think this whole commissioners court is committed to try and do something with this. I mean, when somebody can't smell something off one versus off another, something is wrong. Now, I am not up to speed on everything that I need to be on right now, but I will diligently work to get there. But you all -- you all are dealing with something that nobody would wanted to deal with, and there ought to be a way scientifically that we can take and do something with the odor. Because as far as I'm concerned, the odor is the major issue. I wouldn't want to live out there. I know that we have staff that have told me that they have been out there recently and have had the issues. So I'm -- I look forward to working with it and we'll -- in compliance with next week, but I just want you to know that it's on my radar screen and I'm going to do everything that I can to try to help you on it.
>> well, can I make a request? I don't know if this is probable or not, but -- possible or not, but I would like to -- I don't know if it's possible to get any documentation on what would be the composition of the county's trash. What are the key components of the trash. Because I would like to look at it from an environmental viewpoint. A lot today has been said about the environment and preserving it and saving it. And I think we need to look at those issues. So I don't know if that material is public information, if I could see any of that, but I would like to have that analyzed.
>> I can fax you a copy of the backup. And what it will show is about 40 or 50 locations from which trash is picked up. And they vary. Some of them probably have nothing but paper. But others, like the gardner betts juvenile center, del valle complex, they would have food and a lot of other stuff.
>> and our parks.
>> my guess is it would be almost impossible to do an analysis in a week. But commissioner Davis can probably call some of the department heads and just ask them. My guess is they could give you one, two, three --
>> we could get a listing of the 40 places?
>> we've got them all here.
>> I'm going to give you my backup.
>> so I could be e-mailed that?
>> i'll give it to you right now.
>> I just would like to add that it's eased a little bit. I've lived here since '77. I've never come forward in front of you and even messed with your contracts with anyone on any issue, and definitely not on the waste contract that you've awarded in the past 20 or so. It's usually not our realm, but our problem is it came to our attention that the reason the odor started was because of the shortcuts they were using, mainly saving money, to take care of their waste without putting the six-inch layer, you know, leeching, all of these things that caused the situation we're in now, which is almost impossible to remedy. And so this is why I'm saying to you you need to look at that bottom line just a little bit better because it's easy to give you a bomb line when you know no one can meet it, but how are they arriving at that bottom line and what are they cutting to get it that low? If this is no longer commerce, if you are doing things that are just causing some terrible consequences to the surrounding neighborhoods.
>> I need to be real clear about what's going to happen between now and next Monday. We don't meet Tuesday. We're doing it a day early. Is that we even -- I need to either find out what are the legal grounds that you would disqualify -- I'm not disqualifying. My motion was for modification of language.
>> that's nie second piece. Because I think the judge is asking that.
>> regarding the second bidder, to bypass the low bid would be 60,000 less, my guess we would have to disqualify -- [multiple voices]
>> I would like to get a legal opinion on that right now.
>> or what can you do in terms of a contract modification that was not part of the original r.f.p. About what kind of information and pricing decisions were made.
>> you remember that new statute -- it's not new anymore, it's 10 years old. There is a way to modify a bid after it has gone to bid, but we would have to get the contractor's okay on it.
>> okay, well, [inaudible] for modification purposes is still something that I can still do.
>> but in response to you all's question, when it's time for us to go out on bid again, we would look at the contractor's performance on the previous contract if the contractor had it. And in this case, waste management has the business and has had it. So my question would be have they been doing a good job of picking up our trash. I don't think we would analyze -- purchasing wouldn't analyze waste management landfills. Purchasing -- by law, we would look at the numbers. And the question is pretty simple. Who has the lowest bid and is that under our budget. You see what I'm saying? It would be a different thing if we had budgeted $100,000 and the bid was 150. My guess is we would revise the bid and go back again and either ask for less or we would have to come up with more money. But in that case what you do is you reject all of bids, you wouldn't just reject one of them. So for us to bypass the low bid, in my view, would be tantamount to disqualification. Then the question would be based on what? And I don't know that odors and the history that we have been made aware of over the last year and dealt with also would be sufficient. But clearly by next Monday we could find out.
>> so you would e-mail us with that? Because that would help us in preparation for next Monday if we had what the legal document was to --
>> we can get a legal opinion from counsel this afternoon in executive session.
>> okay. That would be helpful. Normally we wouldn't share that, but I think there's probably enough of it to share where you would know legally what we think the options are.
>> well, let me say this again. I'm not pushing for disqualification. I'm not going to come back to try to disqualify. It is a big concern in the community. I'm not looking at that as being one of the disfall disqualifying factors. What I'm looking for is looking for a modification of language in the contract by not [inaudible] so I'm asking this to be postponed for a week.
>> what I'm asking is in fairness to us, if you grant the week, something has to happen.
>> that's why I'm looking for modification in language.
>> your keeping this to yourself doesn't help the rest of us try to come to where you are.
>> getting something I can share.
>> I think you owe us that.
>> yeah. I don't have it this morning.
>> if you do that by Friday, I'm happy.
>> that's fine with me.
>> we'll get a legal opinion from counsel this afternoon to see where we are on legal.
>> thank you all.
>> thank you all very much.
>> move we recess until 1:45 for lunch.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM