MAYFAIR INTO THE SPOTLIGHT
Then came Tuesday, Jan. 25 and Supervisor Perea’s RFP idea.
Republic Services (owned by Allied) is the hauler for county islands. I live in a county island near Fig Garden Village. Republic trucks come by my house every Tuesday.
Perea wanted to go the RFP route for just a portion of Republic’s urban Fresno territory. We’re talking about Mayfair, an oddly shaped neighborhood east of Radio Park and south of McLane High School.
Much of Mayfair is in the county. Parts are in the city. My wife and I once lived in a Mayfair apartment in the city, just across the street from Mayfair houses in the county.
It was just such a street that Perea had in mind. He said Mayfair’s city residents pay less for city-operated service than Mayfair’s county residents pay for Republic’s service. That’s not right, he said.
“Who is our primary concern at the Board of Supervisors – the customer or the haulers?” Perea asked.
“That’s a ridiculous question,” Borges said.
“Thank you,” Perea said.
There were other pieces to Perea’s proposal. Trash service in Mayfair would be mandatory. As it now stands, residents in any of the 13 service areas can opt out of outside garbage service – “self haul” is the term. And the RFP would apply only to Mayfair, not any other parts of Republic’s urban Fresno territory or the other 12 service areas.
Needless to say, a lot of talk ensued.
Keith Hester, Republic’s general manager, said it wasn’t fair to single out his company for an RFP. He said all sorts of unexpected consequences could occur.
Borgeas and Poochigian wanted no part of a Mayfair RFP.
Their thoughts and questions ranged far and wide. For instance, they worried about the Prop. 218 requirement, a state constitutional amendment mandating property-owner input on changes to certain fees. They said there are good reasons (volume being the big one) why residents of a city of 515,000 pay less for trash service than those of a small neighborhood like Mayfair. They said it’s too early to go the RFP route since the “amend and extend” option has yet to be tested.
In the end, Borgeas proposed that staff be told to begin the “amend and extend” process with the 10 haulers. That should take six to eight months. If the product of all that work doesn’t satisfy the supes, then they’ll break out the RFP option.
Whether that’s for all 10 haulers or only those that failed the “amend and extend” process wasn’t clear.
