OpenCDA

April 16, 2016

Garbage!

Filed under: Probable Cause — Bill @ 3:37 pm

GarbagePickupSaturday morning’s Coeur d’Alene Press skews paper article by staff writer Devin Heilman was aptly headlined Sanitation service showdown.

At its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, April 19 at 6 p.m., the Coeur d’Alene City Council is scheduled to consider Resolution 16-020 awarding a ten-year contract with two three-year option extensions to Northern State PAK, LLC, d/b/a Coeur d’Alene Garbage Service.  This is an extremely lucrative contract (several million dollars) with a guaranteed ten-year revenue stream.

OpenCdA thinks the public needs to pay very close attention to this agenda item at Tuesday night’s meeting. 

For many years the City has awarded the contract to Waste Management, Inc.    As the skewspaper article today reports, Waste Management, Inc. is challenging the Request for Proprosal (RFP) process which the bidders were required to follow.   State law (I.C. § 67-2806) requires the City to accept the lowest qualified bid.  Alternatively, the City can reject all bids submitted and re-bid the contract.

We urge diligent OpenCdA readers to examine the City Staff Report, the Staff Report Addendum, and the proposed contract.  These were part of the packet provided to the Mayor and each Councilman to study prior to Tuesday night’s Council meeting.   We presume these documents are accurate and truthful, and we hope they sufficiently answer most if not all of the Council’s questions.

Prior to Council’s considering the proposed resolution, we expect Mayor Widmyer will ask if any Council member has any ‘conflict of interest’ to declare.  That term has a very narrow meaning as defined in the Idaho Ethics in Government Act of 2015, specifically in I.C. § 74-403(4).

We don’t think that general inquiry goes far enough in this particular deliberation.

Given the very unusual duration and value of this solid waste contract, OpenCdA thinks Mayor Widmyer needs to ask each Council member individually to respond on the record to each of these questions:

  • Are you or any member of your family or spouse of any member of your family through the second level of consanguinity employed by any of the three qualified bidders for this contract?
  • Identify the date and amount of any campaign contributions you or your campaign treasurer received from any of the three qualified bidders or their principals or employees.
  • Identify the date, description, and value of any gifts received from any of the three qualified bidders or their principals or employees.
  • Identify any foundations with which you have been affiliated after your election which, during your affiliation, have solicited or received donations from any of the three qualified bidders or their principals or their employees.

We hope Mayor Widmyer will also answer these questions since he is expected to vote to break tie votes.

The issue Tuesday night is not the quality of service of garbage collection in Coeur d’Alene.  If the bidders were properly qualified and if the contract has been properly and skillfully written by the City Attorney, all bidders are presumed capable of delivering the same defined quality of services.   Any particular company’s history of good or bad service is irrelevant at this meeting.

The only issue Tuesday night is whether the RFP and bidding process complied with all the laws of the State of Idaho.

2 Comments

  1. Council member Edinger seems to be screaming the loudest which lead me to search campaign donations. Edinger’s loyalty to his special interest groups is stronger than saving money. Very interesting!

    Comment by LTR — April 17, 2016 @ 8:06 am

  2. Also, see our OpenCdA post titled Late to the Party on October 27, 2015. Pay attention to the “Visionary Partners” who give $15,000 to the North Idaho Family Group. As we opined then

    OpenCdA seriously challenges the propriety of Councilman Kiki Miller being involved in any city Council deliberations or decisions involving any of her NIFG organization’s “Visionary Partners.” While appearing to distance herself from any direct financial benefit from NIFG, the unmistakable impression left with outside observers is that a Coeur d’Alene City Councilman certainly has an emotional if not financial investment in the NIFG. Some of those observers may well be inclined to donate in hopes that Councilman Miller will remember their “Visionary Partner” donation if and when the observers make a request to Council to do business with the City of Coeur d’Alene.

    Comment by Bill — April 17, 2016 @ 8:40 am

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