City to buy 3 garbage trucks

Attempts to privatize trash service fail

After unsuccessful attempts to privatize Yuma’s trash collection services, the city is moving ahead with the purchase of three replacement garbage trucks.

The purchase is on the motion consent agenda for Wednesday’s regular meeting, prompting the council to discuss it during Tuesday’s work session. Councilman Jacob Miller questioned why the city was looking to buy the trucks when it had been considering privatization. Once the city pays for the equipment, it would be too invested, Miller noted.

City Administrator Greg Wilkinson pointed out that the city has tried to privatize the service several times, even bringing in Republic Services to do a cost audit. The company “walked away” and said “we can’t do it” at the same cost as the city.

“We’ve been through this several times, and it would increase the cost to citizens significantly, like a 50 percent increase,” Wilkinson said.

However, if it did happen, Miller wanted to know what would happen to the city’s equipment. Wilkinson said that the normal practice is for the private company to buy the city’s equipment and hire its employees.

However, Wilkinson stressed, the city no longer has plans to privatize the service.

The agenda calls for approval of the purchase of three automated side loaders, Peterbilt/McNeilus collection trucks, by using the cooperative purchase agreement originated by Houston-Galveston Area Council at a cost of $297,631 each, for a total of $892,893, through Rush Truck Centers of Yuma.

Funds would come from the Equipment Replacement Fund. The trucks are being replaced due to chassis and body mechanical failures in the current equipment.

Miller also asked about another item, a one-year job order contract for refurbishment and replacement of municipal water and wastewater treatment plant infrastructure. Staff is recommending that the contract be awarded to PCL Construction of Tempe, over the other bidder, LPC Construction of Yuma.

Robin Wilson, senior buyer with the city’s Financial Services, explained that LPC did not meet the minimum requirements for the contract.

“Their proposal was lacking,” she said.

A job order contract is similar to the delivery order contracts the city uses for consultant services of relatively small projects, according to a staff report. It’s a competitively bid, indefinite-quantity contract that will permit the city to process many smaller water and wastewater treatment plant and related projects quickly and costeffectively.

It would also permit the city to quickly engage the contractor for capital and maintenance projects up to $2 million, based on defined scopes of work and the fixed unit prices. All projects using this process that exceed $100,000 will be presented to the council for approval.

The staff report notes that this JOC would save the city “significant” funds in several ways: the ability to use abbreviated plans; elimination of the need for project-by-project specifications; elimination of the need to bid every small project; and lower overall contract costs.

In addition to the cost savings, the city would have the ability to engage the contractor in a matter of weeks from the determination of need, instead of several months as is currently the case.

The contract comes with the option to renew for four additional one-year periods, one period at a time, depending on the available funds and satisfactory performance.

Signaling out another agenda item, Mayor Doug Nicholls asked that a public hearing scheduled almost at the end of the meeting be moved to the top. The hearing will focus on the city’s Old Town South Subarea Revitalization Plan 2016 Implementation Strategy. The council is being asked to approve and adopt the plan.

The rest of the council members agreed to the agenda move.

The regular meeting will held at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in the City Hall Council Chambers, 1 City Plaza. View the complete agenda at www.yumaaz.gov.