Windsor chooses new garbage company, rejecting its current hauler

After months of back and forth, political opposition, a lawsuit and threats of more lawsuits, Windsor once has again chosen a garbage hauler - for the third time since May.

The saga represents a grueling first example of the process that other local cities, including Santa Rosa, are embarking on as they renew or re-evaluate curbside garbage contracts, most of which are with the same hauler, the Santa-Rosa-based Ratto Group, which is up for sale to a San Francisco company.

For many communities, the garbage contracts are among the most lucrative deals they hand out.

In Windsor, the deal is worth more than $56 million in revenue over 10 years to the company that came out on top Wednesday night.

The Town Council voted 4-1 to award the contract to a different hauler, Sonoma County Resource Recovery, owned by the San Rafael-based Garden City Group, Marin Sanitary Service Group and its president, Kevin Walbridge.

The decision dealt another rejection to the town’s current hauler, Windsor Refuse and Recycling - co-owned by the Ratto Group - which recently sued the town and claimed the bidding process was unfair.

Several council members expressed dismay over that move.

“If you want to win a contract with a bunch of elected officials, threatening a bunch of lawsuits for us to do it is probably not the best way to do it,” Councilman Dominic Foppoli said.

Mayor Debora Fudge said “there have been multiple reasons for this nightmare we’ve been going through,” and alluded to on “political shenanigans” that complicated the process for awarding the contract.

Santa Rosa, which is in the midst of renewing its garbage contract and entertaining offers from some of the same players, may draw lessons from Windsor’s experience.

“Other cities are watching what’s going on,” Fudge said, adding that she apologized to a third company, San Jose-based Green Waste Recovery Inc., which was originally awarded the contract only to withdraw after citing political and legal pressures.

“It’s been a real black mark on Sonoma County to see people blocked at every turn,” Fudge said.

Councilman Sam Salmon was the lone dissenting vote, saying he likes the service Windsor Refuse and Recycling has given to the town over the past 20 years, as well as some of the community activities it has participated in.

Rates will be going up with the new deal, but Windsor officials said it was inevitable with whatever company ended up being chosen.

The current monthly residential rate for a 32-gallon container, the most popular size, will go from $17.20 to $24.

The 64-gallon containers will go from $29.31 per month to $38.

“These are significant rate increases,“ Town Manager Linda Kelly said. “We knew our current hauler’s rates were artificially low for various reasons - investments not made in equipment and some violations.”

Also, landfill fees are on the rise, officials noted.

The council cited Sonoma County Resource Recovery’s robust recycling and public outreach programs as helping to win the contract, which involves service for more than 7,700  residential accounts and almost 278 commercial customers.

The company is a new entity consisting of companies with past or present curbside collection contracts in the Alameda, San Leandro, San Jose, Livermore and San Rafael.

Windsor is required to put its garbage contract out to competitive bid every decade, as a result of a 1996 voter mandate, the first city in the county to adopt that mandate in an effort to obtain the best rates and service.

But the process has had some unusual twists and turns since the town a year ago put out requests for proposals from garbage companies interested in hauling its residential and commercial trash, recycling and organic waste.

Five companies were in the running, including Windsor Refuse and Recycling, subsidiary of the Ratto Group, which also serves Santa Rosa and the majority of Sonoma County.

Ratto is in the process of being sold to Recology, one of the largest garbage and recycling operations on the West Coast.

The Town Council in May awarded the contract to Green Waste Recovery Inc., before reconsidering the vote because of issues with the company’s proposed transfer station site for recyclable materials - an initial location just south of Santa Rosa, then a second site in Petaluma, both mired in controversy.

After Petaluma council members and planning officials objected and some citizens groups threatened to sue over environmental issues, the council again awarded the contract to Green Waste in early June after the company said it would find a location closer to Windsor to transfer recyclables from garbage trucks onto bigger vehicles to take the materials to its San Jose facility for sorting.

But last week, Green Waste decided to pull out of consideration, saying it was having trouble securing a transfer station in time for the Oct. 1 deadline to begin serving Windsor.

Green Waste also cited political and legal pressures, including a lawsuit filed in late June by Windsor Refuse and Recycling.

The lawsuit named both Green Waste and the Town of Windsor, claiming the bidding process was unfair and the town engaged in secret meetings that favored the finalists.

Town officials said the lawsuit was baseless, but Green Waste said the litigation would affect its ability to provide service while significantly increasing costs. On Thursday, Town Manager Kelly indicated the legal fights may drag on.

“It’s been a long and winding road. Unfortunately we don’t believe all the ancillary issues related to this are over. We could be facing one or more future lawsuits,” she said.