City Council - Successor Agency - Housing Authority - Regular Meeting

Yes, sir.

Good afternoon. I'll now call to order the closed session meeting of the Fullerton City Council for June 30th, 2026. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Mayor Jung?

Yes, ma'am.

Mayor Pro Tem Dunlap?

Here.

Council Member Valencia? Here. Council Member Zara?

Here.

Council Member Charles is not yet present.

All right. We'll now seek public comment. Seeing none in chambers, anyone on Zoom? on the recessed closed session. Thank you. All right, good afternoon. I'll now call this special study session meeting to order for June 30th, 2026. Madam Clerk, please call the roll call.

Mayor Jung.

Present.

Mayor Bertram Dunlap.

Here.

Council Member Charles.

Here.

Council Member Valencia. Here. Council Member Zara.

Here. I can call on Council Member Charles to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance this afternoon.

Okay, thank you. If you're able, please rise. Follow me.

All right.

Mr. City Attorney, anything to report from closed session?

No report.

Okay. I'll ask any council members if there were ex parte communications to report, look left, right. Okay. And let's go to public comments. Madam Clerk.

Sorry. So let me pull up my screen. I was, there we go. Would you like the public comments on the business item now?

Business item now, please. Okay. This is a special meeting, so public comments are limited to the items on the agenda.

Thank you. I have three people registered. Francisco Miranda, Shawna Adam, and Julie.

The audio. What's going on here? Okay. Those that had signed up for public comment and heard your name being called please come forward if you didn't hear your name being called you're welcome to line up as well

Good evening. I care to differ. This is not a study session. It's a regular meeting. So we can have regular public comment. Pardon me?

Is this your public comment?

It can be.

Okay. Please do.

That's part of it. So is this about the business item, which comes up later on the agenda? So there's regular public comments on the agenda and then the business item later.

The attorney already... This is a special... It's been noticed as a special meeting. City clerks noticed it as a special meeting, as I understand.

But if you look at the agenda, it shows both.

We have language on the agenda that says that public comments may be limited just to items on the agenda and on the agenda with the public comments. To clarify that.

As a special meeting, it's limited to those items on the agenda only. And it's been noticed as a special meeting. The clerk took care of all those things in noticing...

I differ with that if you look at the agenda, it's a regular meeting, but a special meeting that was called and it shows regular public comments. The mayor making an appointment and then the business item coming in and it's not a steady session. It's a regular special meeting where you can take action tonight. Am I correct?

No. I'll defer to the city clerk, but as I see it, it says it's a special meeting. She noticed that it has a special meeting. And by the way, we can give direction this evening, but we can't make decisions with respect.

So I've just used all of my time for the business item on the agenda.

I'm happy to give you more time, but I wouldn't adjudicate this with the city attorney back and forth if I may.

So right now I need to talk about the trash haulers, correct? Correct. Okay, thank you. Let me get my prepared statement.

May I just ask a point of order here?

Just to clarify. So in the, I understand where the confusion is. In the agenda report, it says city council, it says public comment, but it says city council may limit comments to only items described. So when you say may limit, that means it is at council discretion to either have regular public comments or to limit it to the agenda item.

It's always council discretion. Yeah, I don't plan on limiting anybody. I'm just taking public comment right now.

All right.

So why don't we afford it?

Are we giving general public comment then? Is that the choice?

That's what she's looking to do or talk about the trash RFP. It's whatever she wishes to do. I'm not going to make that decision for her.

But trash comments won't come later. I either do it now. That's correct. Okay. Can we start my time over? Of course. Thank you so much. I ask that you keep Republic Services and award it the contract. It is not perfect and no one is. In my opinion, and I've lived in Fullerton for 40 years, 99% of the time it does a good job. We have seen and witnessed this for many years. Keeping it will be less disruptive to residents and commercial clients. It will be streamlined without disruption, which any change will be as of necessity just by the change. I also want to speak out against considering enhancements upfront money, in one case $10 million and another case $15 million, which essentially allows companies that can, and not all good companies can, to buy their contract with the city. This was suggested at the Ad Hoc Fiscal Sustainability Committee, and companies felt the need to offer this to be competitive, which I don't think was right. Consideration should only be given to reliability, track record, and all other values that staff considered. and not convoluted with all the other enhancements that do not have anything to do with trash hauling. I also ask that the companies that put that money up front as an offer loan to the city, which I don't think is fair, that they take it back and that would allow them to make a better offer to the city in terms of rates and that kind of thing. So I ask you, and also I want to mention about Valley Vista. I said it at the meeting after the study session, I don't think they should have been allowed to have a second time to come through this. They didn't score high enough. The fairness would have been that they would have been out of the running. And Councilman member Zara kept asking What cities do these other companies match that are similar to ours? Valley Vista does not have a city our size. The closest thing, I think, was something like 90,000 or it wasn't close to the size of our city. And so I ask that you consider only the top three and allow Republic to redo their Some of theirs, if they take back their $10 million offer, which I think was unfair to even present that they felt the need to do that. Thank you. All right. Next speaker.

Okay. Francisco, we're back in order. Then Shauna, then Julie Barreta.

Thank you for being patient. Hello. My name is Francisco Miranda. I'm a resident of Fullerton on Sandalwood. Been there since 2012. I've always had great service. from your trash people that picked up our trash. My neighbors never complained, they like them. Even when I call in for an extra to replace one of my trash bins, great service on that part too. So to me, I'm happy with the service and that's why I'm here. to represent our residents of Fullerton that I'm very grateful to have that kind of service. So anyway, your trash people are outstanding. That's all I can say is about that. So I'm here just to keep them going. That's all. Thank you.

Shauna, then followed by Julie and then Jeff Otter.

Hello, Mayor, council members, member of the audience. My name is Shauna Adam and been a Fullerton member over 30 years and found picking up trash, it's not a sexy subject. I understand that. You can see how many people signed up to talk about this. But when services go out to bid, many are quick to select the least expensive option because on the surface level, it might look like the better deal. However, one needs to do due diligence and look deeper to contrast and compare all the services being provided, cost of and the timelines as these will vary. I need to make it clear. I was not asked to come nor solicited by Republic to come here to speak on behalf of the company, nor do I have any family members or neighbors or friends who work for the company. And I need to make that statement because I don't want anyone to think that I'm up here speaking on behalf of the Republic for based on someone asking me to do so. I'm a member of the community and I've been very happy with them over the years when I've had my trash can stolen a couple of times up in my neighborhood off of Hermosa and Teton. Republic has brought and replaced it at no cost. My understanding in talking with friends over this past, I don't know, I'd say six months, we've been comparing different costs in trash pickup and schedules. Some companies charge for replacement, also for bulk pickup. Our city has unlimited bulk pickup, which is great because we need to make sure people utilize it instead of sending their trash out into the parks, which takes up our resources. And also, we're not charged as consumers additional costs for bulk pickup, unlike other cities, which are doing so because they're charging the residents on top of what we currently pay for $60 for our weekly scheduled pickup. Or they have bulk pickup twice a year, which limits the ability for some to be able to utilize it. And I would say that being one who uses it for, I use it and I would like other people to use it. So our neighborhood and city does not end up looking like other cities with all the trash setting out on the sidelines. Thank you.

Next speaker is Julie from CRNR, then Jeff Otter, and then Lori Bruno.

Good evening, Mayor Jung and City Council. My name is Julie Beretta, Senior Vice President with CRNR, and it's a pleasure to see you all again this evening. To start off, we want to thank city staff for their hard work and follow up through this RFP process. It's definitely not an easy task. We also want to thank and commend the City Council for the decision made at the last meeting to bring the selected haulers back for the second best and final. It's apparent from what we saw reviewing the proposals that there were some very competitive enhancements turned in, and overall with whatever hauler you select, the community and the ratepayers will definitely benefit. With that being said, we know you have a very tough decision before you this evening, and we'd like to recap just a few highlights of our proposal. We feel CRNR provided the strongest combination of competitive rates, immediate investment, operational capabilities, and regulatory certainty. We're four miles away from your city with the most operating facilities in Orange County. Our like-sized cities that we serve to Fullerton are the city of Orange, Costa Mesa, and Newport Beach. We've guaranteed the city SB 1383 compliance, including RNG credits from the renewable natural gas that we produce at our anaerobic digestion plant. I think it's important to note from the first proposal we submitted in November to our second best and final we feel that our rates are fair and equitable and we want to assure the city and the rate payers that we will not come back in a couple years and say oops we bid too low and we need to raise rates that will not happen from CRR. I wanted to highlight something we submit our initial proposal which has a $300,000 beautification project to help refurbish all of the city enclosures and the downtown area. As a follow up to the last meeting that we were at, we heard the discussion from city council and it was brought up by the previous speaker, the concern about bulky item collection, but specifically for multifamily properties. And one of the new enhancements that we added is that we will provide a monthly bulky item collection program for multifamily properties during the heavy move in and move out periods. The collection will be exactly the same as what we provide for single family homes at no additional charge with the exact amount of items for each single family home will also offer that to the individual units within the multifamily property. we'd also like to recognize that we know that our collection vehicles are large and they do cause wear and tear to city streets and as part of our new enhancement we did propose a road improvement contribution to help the city offset those street repairs. We have the experience to be your next hauler. We've transitioned 17 cities in the last 20 years, and we would love to add Fullerton to the CRNR family. We thank you for your time and consideration. Have a good evening.

Jeff Otter, then Lori Bruno and Jordan Barrera.

Good evening, mayor and members of the city council. My name is Jeffrey Otter. I'm a resident of district three and treasurer of the Craig park east homeowners association. I've submitted a formal statement to the city clerk and wish that it be entered into the record. I am here to address rate equity for multifamily residents under the pending waste services contract under California proposition to 18 waste fees or property related fees. They must legally be proportional to the actual cost of serving each parcel. However, because of multifamily recycling and organics programs haven't launched yet, there is zero empirical data to support a formal cost-of-service analysis right now. Without this data, the proposed commercial bidding structure creates a massive disparity gap. Our analysis shows that under the proposed commercial schedules, identical container services cost 480% to 1,400% of single-family rates. When we modeled this impact on a typical multi-family community like Craig Park East HOA, the results depended heavily on the bidder. Per household, multi-family residents would face waste rates 14% to 168% higher than single-family homes for the same level of service. Under the incumbent Republic services, our communities modeled rate would skyrocket to 268% of the single family rate. Because multifamily residents often have the least visibility into these municipal rate structures, they are highly vulnerable to these types of disproportionate adjustments. To remedy these severe disparities before they take effect, we urge the council to adopt a legally defensible Two-step transition. First, negotiate Phase I interim rates using a two-tier commercial structure. These temporary rates should align the cost per multifamily dwelling with a single-family residential rate. Our submitted statement provides a revenue-neutral blueprint to achieve this parity. with the bidders. Second, mandate a formal data-driven cost of service analysis after 24 months of active service. Once hard operational data is collected, final rates must be legally adjusted to reflect actual audited costs. You will have your fingerprints on this waste services agreement for the next 10 to 20 years. At a time when housing affordability is a critical concern in our community, we cannot allow unverified municipal rate structures to artificially inflate the cost of living for our renters and condo owners. Please protect our community's housing affordability, adopt this interim parity strategy, and ensure legal compliance with Proposition 218. Thank you.

Next speaker, Lori Bruno, Jordan Barrera, then Lucy. And that's all I have signed up. So if anybody else would like to speak, if you could work your way to the wall opposite me, and then we'll get you to the microphone next.

All right. Well, good evening. I just want to say, I know we've had a difficult last couple months, but I want to say thank you for all you do for the city of Fullerton. I see you and I appreciate you. So thank you. The reason why I'm here today is I'm a long-term resident of Fullerton. I'm also a former risk director of a very large waste company, Republic Services. I also, if you have kids in the Fullerton school district, I was very active in who's in your crosswalk? I'm a die-hard safety Karen in the community, and I'm not running for anything. I care about kids. I care about the safety of residents, and I watch the city like a hawk because I want to make sure that somebody is looking out for safety. I just listened to a conversation about a prospective company. Not once did they mention safety. Disappointing. Here is, I worked for Republic Services for 12 years. I managed their claims. And I saw firsthand, I don't care what company you pick, but I saw firsthand what a best-in-class operations organization looked like. I could care what, I don't care who you choose. But what I want to do is draw attention that it's not about just pricing. I sent, this is my why. I now represent 145 school districts across California making sure that kids are safe. This is a copy of a fatality in the city of Placentia involving a young 13-year-old kid that was struck and killed as he left a crosswalk. To me, if you don't put safety into this conversation, you're not doing your jobs. and I appreciate the job that you're doing, but it's not just about pricing. I remember when the city of Fullerton used to have their residents put out large, bulky items in the garbage truck Folks, the garbage collectors would come out and physically lift them. Beds, you know, they would do it by hand. City of Fullerton has really benefited under Republic Services. But one of the things I will say is, whatever you decide to do, that's up to you. But it's who manages the contract. Who's managing the contract? Is somebody going to check their safety record? Is somebody going to make sure they know how to handle lithium batteries and fires? Is somebody going to make sure that they have somebody? Four miles is great. Republic is less than two miles away. I'm not saying to pick any one. But if you want safety in your city, make sure you guys talk about safety. Make sure your operations people, who's ever managing it, understand safety. And guess what? If that person is you, I would love to spend an hour with you so you can audit to look at a hauler's safety records. I want to make sure your transition plan is right. is solid for safety, not for pricing, for safety. I was at Republic for 13 years. I was at the Fullerton School District for 12. I do public safety and traffic safety for a living. I'm always the Karen out in the crosswalk lobbying for safety. If you're smiling, safety is not funny. I've seen the brain of a child on the back of a wheel It's serious. So whoever else is coming out here talking about the waste collection, I hope the S word, not just service, safety is a part of it.

Next speaker is Jordan, followed by Lucy, and then to the folks who aren't registered.

Good evening. My name is Jordan Barrera. I have had the pleasure of meeting several of you. I work for an organization called Higher Ground Youth and Family Services. We're a nonprofit that has been in Anaheim and now in Fullerton. And I just wanted to come and share our experiences with Republic Services, but mostly my experience. Republic Services has shown up in so many ways for our families. I started out in the program as a mom. And that's what I was for many years before I worked there. And I have seen firsthand the Republic Services looks for creative ways to serve the community. They show up for the families. They go beyond the service and try to figure out how they can be part of making a lasting impact to better our communities. I think it's important when any city partners with any service agency that it goes beyond just a transactional, this is what we can do for you. It's about how do we work together to make the community better. And I believe that's been a core part of what they have continued to do. I've witnessed it with us, but I also volunteer and serve on committees for other nonprofits, and I've seen them do that across the board. It's consistent, it's caring, and it comes from their heart. They really care about the impact they have in the community. And I think that's a core component when you're looking at who you're going to bring into your community. I know as a council, it's important to you guys as well, because your goal is to make the communities as best as you can. And so I just wanted to come up here and share that I've seen that firsthand as a mom, I've seen that as working at the organization that I work for, and I've seen that serving in other nonprofits. So I just want to thank you guys in your consideration of this and to truly consider the impact beyond just the service they provide, but the lasting impact they have in a community.

Thank you. And our last registered speaker is Lucy, and then we'll get to the folks lined up. And so far, no remote comments.

Good evening, my name is Lucy. I just came here because some of my, a person that distributes the observer mentioned it, I don't understand, you know, usually the meetings are later so the community can come because people work. And moving the meetings earlier makes our city people that lives there more difficult to come to the meetings because they're working. And I heard that you guys are changing the contract from the current one that we have for the trash. I just hope that you guys don't raise prices. I just heard the lady speaking on behalf of the company that wants to come in instead of the current one, and they're talking about that their trucks are bigger and it is going to be a detriment to the streets. Of course, she said that they will provide money for the streets, which I've been here 30 years, and I have seen hardly any improvements on the streets. It's like building a lot of homes homes, a lot of multiple family residential, but your last priority is the streets. You know, fixing the streets. But putting too much people, too many cars, and now bringing trucks. They're bigger than the ones that we have, currently have. And I am pretty sure that it's going to be more expensive because probably the ones that's going to be saving something, it will be somebody there, not the residents. I just hope that your priorities be set straight. We have very poor lighting, horrible streets, and I just hope for next time, I don't see anything to make the community know when the meetings are. It's everything last minute, and I don't think that is fair. I'm not working right now, so I can come, but the residents that I know around, they all work. And it's so difficult for them to attend, even though they have their, you know, how they feel about. And they said, thank you for coming. And, and, you know, at least for us, but that's not enough. You have to make it more easier for the residents to come here to this meeting. Thank you.

And our folks who are lined up.

Good evening. Can you hear me? OK. Helen Higgins, District 2. So as the previous speaker said, cheaper is not necessarily better. I appreciate Republic Services. I have found no fault with their service. I'm coming up here to speak to you primarily from a point of view that nobody's mentioned so far, and that is the fact that Republic Services does use union workers. As a former resident of Detroit many years ago, you know what I'm talking about by unions. So the two cheaper trash services, according to a table of rate comparisons that I reviewed this afternoon, neither one are union shops. I would hope after this primary election season and what's going to carry forth through to November, the importance of our unions. So I would pay very close attention to that aspect of whatever choice trash hauler you pick. Thank you.

Karen Lareda, District 2. This is a 20-year contract. We, the residents of Fullerton, have to live with the consequences of your decision today. This directly impacts our lives every week. This isn't about the five of you. It's not about the three of you. It's about the people on the other side of the dais. We are the ones that will pay the price. So please, no more shaky deals that benefit friends or donors. No more taking a chance on risky outcomes. Let's go for the tried and true, the stable, the long-term, reliable service. Direct, simple. I actually urge you to be conservative tonight. The evaluation committee consisting of five staff from relevant departments ranked all applicants and recommended the top three for consideration. Those were EDCO, CR&R, and Universal. Mayor Young and Councilwoman Valencia decided to add three more. Staff used objective criteria in ranking these applicants. Don't second-guess them on this. We're not talking about policy here. We want good, dependable service at reasonable rates for the next 20 years. Please don't try to salvage your reputation or dig us out of the hole by choosing a risky, quick fix. We have seen what it is to live with prior Council's poor decisions. Don't encumber us with yet another one. My personal preference is CR&R. They are Orange County based, have a proven record of service and community participation. Their enhancement package is the most complete of the six, and they are offering a $4 million road improvement investment to the city. Valley Vista's customer reviews are terrible. You really ought to read them. And Athens is based out of L.A. and serves basically L.A. cities. Again, the objective rankings were considered and deliberate. Residents are not council members. We acknowledge that. But many of us take time to really look at the issues in depth. We research, discuss, and compare options, which is more than some council people do. We do not come before you on a whim. Please take our comments seriously. You owe us that. Take the prudent path. Make all of our lives a little easier. Thank you.

This looks like our last speaker in chambers. Otherwise, line up now or we will move on to Zoom when we do have one hand raised.

Thank you, Lucinda. My name is Jane Ranz. I live in District 5, Amad's District. Mayor Jeong and Council, I'm glad to be here. My biggest concern that I guess I haven't had an opportunity to express that I was hoping this is the right time to do it feels kind of late in the process, but... There's a lot of great options that people are offering, and pricing, yes, is important. I'm going to reiterate what other people have said on this, and that is prices and everything, we want good service. And based on that, I think some real basics need to be ensured that are provided, such as trucks that don't leak green goo, red globs, and other products. fluids on our streets and alleyways, which is something I've been seeing on a regular basis. Don't fault the drivers, they're good people. I've seen one scrambling with rags he clearly brought from home, old T-shirts trying to wrap up leaking hydraulic lines. I know that's a huge investment, but I think those are some basic standards we should expect. I know, you know, there's different things that people are offering, you know, to fix streets, to fund the city, you know, this huge range of things. But I think just the real basics need to be met and reliable pickup, reliable communication. And the other thing is I think would be helpful for us as residents if we could change the process instead of going or billing going through the city. If this is... It may only be one hauler that this is the case, but we don't have any way to communicate with the current hauler except for over the phone. And sometimes you get people in like Missouri who have they have different pickup standards and recovery. So sometimes you get wrong information. So I'm just. Just the basics. I don't know how to capture that in some of these proposals. But I think cleanliness, always having a cleanup kit on every truck when a driver dumps garbage. Sometimes it's not their fault. Sometimes it's people kind of put junk in their trash that's a mess. But that they clean up after themselves or send somebody to come clean up. Just the real, real basics is all I think... I, regardless of who you select, I think is very important, and if it means a dollar or two more a month to get those basics right, I'm okay with that.

Good afternoon, elect, is this thing on? Good afternoon, elected city council members, district heads, and dedicated staff. I'm Z. I became familiar with Fullerton when I relocated here in 1978. I'm a former Teamster Union member when I worked at UPS. I don't know what the eight or six proposals that the city has looked at on the committee, but there seems like most of those people are here today representing themselves. What I do know about the current company, Republic, is this. Jamie Valencia, who's my representative in District 4, our trash used to be picked up on Fridays. Consistently, my three trash cans are rarely all picked up on Friday. Nearly always, one or more of my trash cans, green waste, recycling, garbage, are not picked up until Saturday, and some Saturdays are not picked up till the afternoon. As a former union member, I can't for the life of me figure out why an individual wants to come to work on a Saturday when their job is Monday through Friday. Lastly, I've asked a direct question for four union members of Republic and they lied to me. I don't think that's a way to represent your company. Lastly, I'm on the investment advisory committee and recently at an advisor meeting, we had a long-term financial advisor that we we left the contract with them. Mr. A said that from time to time, it's good to change to another company. So the advisory committee has changed to a new financial advisor. If that's consistent, show where it's at. As far as safety, you come up here and tell me about safety, 13 years here, 12 years with the school district, but you still don't have sidewalks for five to 12 year olds walking to Orangestorp Elementary School? You can talk all you want about safety, but why don't we see a little action? You had 12 years, you didn't get any sidewalks put in. It's really nice to come up here and talk about safety, but I haven't seen anything done. I keep continuing to watch five to 12 year olds walk to school in the street to elementary school at Orangethorpe Elementary. And we don't have a sidewalk or a curb on just one side of the street to show a commitment to safety. And until I see that, I won't believe a word of anyone who says they're for safety when they're making children walk in the street year after year after year after year where cars travel at high rates of speeds, even at speed limit. You get bumped at 24 miles an hour. You better hope you have a helmet on because otherwise your brains are going to be all over the sidewalk. I want to say go Lancers, go Hornets, go Titans, and go Cougars. God bless you all.

Good evening, Council. Elijah Manicero. I first just want to say that I think that we should stick with a union holler, not necessarily because unions are better or anything like that, but because if we don't go with Republic, then a lot of Fullerton residents may be out of a job. and a union hauler is more likely to be able to absorb those workers and prevent that economic shock. I think for the current offers, CR&R has the best offer. It's head and shoulders above the rest. They offer the lowest residential rate among the union haulers. They also offer the second lowest commercial rate among all of the offers. So they're also giving us $4 million to help fix our roads, and they service more cities in Orange County than any of these other haulers as well. So I think that they deserve serious consideration, but I think we should also give the incumbent Republic a chance to revise their offer. I have no issue with Republic, but when it comes to things like safety, I mean, one of their trucks was on fire two weeks ago, and they have a very old fleet. So I think that there are things that they need to address, and If we do go with Republic, I would suggest three changes to their offer. One, I think that they need to lower their commercial rate to something that's more competitive to the other offers. If that means scaling back some of the other benefits, then so be it. But the commercial rate is far higher than any of these other offers. Two, I think that strong compliance, SB 1383 compliance should be written into the contract. and that we should not put that burden on ourselves and try and put that on the hauler as much as possible. And lastly, they modified it to give us this lump sum of cash that is just increasing rates on residents, and I would like that to be removed. This was an idea that was suggested in the fiscal committee by Tony Buscala, and it was a dumb idea then, and it's a dumb idea now. We have an annual structural deficit. A lump sum of cash does not solve that. So do not put a hidden tax on residents. That is not something that our haulers should be doing. So lastly, I just want to reiterate, I think we should go with CR&R or Republic if they make those three changes, which again are lowering the commercial rate, putting strong SB 1383 compliance written into their contract, and to drop that lump sum of cash and drop that hidden tax on residents. Thank you.

Yes. My name is Vince Buck and I did not expect to speak this afternoon. Um, this has been a strange process to get to where we are now. The, uh, staff recommendations and then, uh, strange subcommittee of two members and without representing the minority of the council seems strange to me um so i think the staff recommendation should be taken seriously i mean they i think uh we should be given a lot of uh validity but that's not what i'm going to talk about now um having said that i'll say something different uh about republic um positive I have needs different from other people. I am disabled. I have one of the steepest driveways in town. Short, but steep. I have difficulty getting up to get my mail. There's no way I can take the garbage cans out. Republic comes down and takes out my cans every week. Almost every week. Almost every can. Occasionally they'll miss a can, but if they do, I call the next day, and then the next day they have someone come out and take care of it. I mean, my needs are different than other people. They've been very good at providing for my needs. I would hate to see us to go with some other company that would not be as reliable in doing that as they have been. And lost my train of thought on my last point here. In any case, one thing I would mention that I'm not happy with is they have to sit in front of my house a little bit longer than in other houses. And one of their trucks drips oil. And so I have these big oil spots in front of my house. But I'm expecting the city to repave that street soon, I hope. So thank you.

Okay, we have one hand raised in Zoom. Alexia, you should be able to unmute.

Yes, thank you. I'd like to say thank you for allowing me to speak. And I am a board member at Park Ridge Condominiums, which is right across the street from Craig Park, right there on Imperial Highway and Associated Road. So I also want to thank Jeffrey from the... one of the neighboring condos letting us know about this. So what I wanted to bring to your attention is this as a condo association, all of our trash, which is being picked up, I believe by Republic. And I can honestly say I've been there 10 years. We've not had any problems at all. Other than, you know, when it's a holiday, they pick up on a different day. Anyway, but as an association, hearing that you want to sign a 20 year contract, I'd caution and ask you to maybe possibly revise that Per the state of California, as HOAs, we're not allowed to sign a contract more than one year, but what we can do is do an automatic renewal for four years and review in five. I recommend that whatever who you go with, that you do only a one-year contract with an automatic renewal up to five years, and then that gives you enough time to gather enough data. Is this working for you? Is it working for the city? Is it making you guys look good? Is it helping the community? Because you do have a very diverse kind of community. You have mobile homes, you have HOAs, you've got condos, you've got townhomes, you've got homes. So also as well with us, our landscaping, we don't have any landscaping in our trash. So all our landscapers take everything away. Plus anybody who does repairs, they're not allowed to use our trash areas for that. So we're only using it for trash. And we pay for a separate company to pick up any trash that's not supposed to be there. So basically the trash company is just picking up trash and i'd like you to keep that in mind when you're looking at an overall cost. That you're going to pass on that there is a difference of cost between townhomes and home associations and things like that, so it is about kind of having a diverse type of costs and I caution just if you could. Please not do a 20-year contract when you look at that. And I'd also like to say I'm not a big proponent of quid pro quos. You know, you give me this, we're going to give you $4 million for roads, and I get it. I mean, we're all living in hard times, and we have to stretch our buck. But we also want to provide the best of customer service. And I know you guys can do that, and I know that's why you guys are there. So I just would like you to take that into account when you're looking at these cost prices because And all of that and how you do that, because at 136 units, we're not a home. We're actually a condo and we only do trash. So I just wanted to bring that to your attention and and to have a review when you're doing these contracts as well. And please don't sign a 20 year contract because you want to have a clause for you to get out. To lock us into something like that would probably not be a wise thing for you or any of us. So other than that, I want to say thank you. And I want to say thank you to Jeffrey Otter for letting us other associations know about this and to come here and participate. All right.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you, everybody, for making those comments. We do have a appointment this evening that I've got to make for the Parks and Recs Commission. Director of Parks and Recs told me that because of my lack of appointment, they don't have quorum to make meetings. So I'm going to appoint Dan Kim this evening. I'll make that motion. Is there a second? All right. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Council member Charles. Aye. Council member Valencia. Aye. Council member Zahra.

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Dunlap.

Aye.

Mayor Jung.

Aye. Item passes. All right. We'll go to the regular business item. This is our solid waste management services request for proposal evaluation. Again, I don't expect council to make a decision this evening. Let's go ahead and have our... solid waste and recycling specialist miss michelle doron make the presentation good evening good evening mayor mayor pro tem and council members

Next slide. The purpose of this evaluation meeting is to obtain direction from council on the next phase of the RFP process, maintain progress with finalizing service agreement terms and preparing for a contract award, and to remain compliant with CalRecycle's corrective action plan known as the CAP deadline requirement. Next slide. to provide an update on the CalRecycle cap compliance. As a reminder, the city received a final cap extension until June 30, 2027, under the contingency of a completed RFP process that will comply with Senate Bill 1383. Staff met with and received a letter from the state identifying a missed April 2026 contract negotiation cap milestone and their concerns regarding compliance with our ultimate final deadline of July 1, 2027 SB 1383 rollout compliance within the new contract. They would like to meet with staff after this meeting in July to see what the outcome was from this council meeting. And if they deliberate and feel that their concerns are large enough where we're not going to meet the ultimate July 1, 2027 goal, then they could cancel the corrective action plan extension and put us into a compliance review audit to be audited within the year. We don't know exactly when they could come the next month, six months, what may be. And within that audit, if we still are not in compliance with our collection service program, it could lead to notices of violations. And if we continue to delay the compliance process, it could also result in penalties ranging from 500 to $10,000 per violation per day, and also could date back to January 1, 2022, which was the initial implementation day of the law. So it is something we really would like council to consider closely when we continue on with our RFP timeline schedule. Next slide. So this provides an RFP status overview of where we started and where we are now. At our last April 14th, 2026 Solid Waste Evaluation Council study session, staff brought forward the evaluation of the nine initial proposals from the nine firms and made recommendations that the evaluation committee voted upon or scored upon, I should say, and also the ad hoc committees additional recommendations. Today, on our June 30th meeting, we're continuing that discussion. Next slide. At that last April 14th meeting, City Council identified, directed staff to advance six selected firms for continued consideration, that being Athens Services, CR&R Environmental Services, EDCO Disposal, Republic Services, Universal Waste Systems, and Valley Vista Services. That would be the three firms that were recommended by the Evaluation Committee and the three firms recommended by the Ad Hoc Committee. So the these shortlisted firms were invited to prepare and submit a final offer proposal. And those proposals were submitted on May 5 of 2026. Next slide. Staff reviewed the six final offer submissions and prepared a comparative summary for City Council consideration. Some firms strengthened their proposals through this final offer process, while others offered strong initial proposals and made targeted refinements, summarized in this slide. And here you would see some categories including pricing, comparable cities, which was brought upon at the last council meeting, union workforce, and key enhancements in community benefits. Next slide. This is now our revised RFP process and timeline cap schedule. This was revised initially to allow sufficient time for council review and public engagement. Currently, we are at the present final evaluation to council section today on June 30th. And there are a select few final activities that have a to be determined milestone date. So after sharing our update on meeting with CalRecycle, we do want to caution council to please keep this in mind as we move forward in the selection process. Next slide. I wanted to bring up some key elements of the RFP just as a reminder. These staff developed service enhancements that would improve activities with the community and it included these select elements. But there's a few that are notable and that I wanted to call upon. One is that this new contract includes a full suite of container size selection options. for commercial and multifamily customers, which is of importance because our current contract allows for multifamily customer only a bin service where this could allow carts, different bin sizes, a possible split bin container, because we do consider the fact that we are now including new services that a lot of businesses and commercial customers do not have, which is recycling and organics. but also it gives, it's not all those properties or businesses are an apples to apples consideration. They have their unique structures and needs and we want to make sure that they are rice size appropriately based on their waste generation and pick the right type of services, the appropriate services that then would help them with the cost. Another notable feature I wanted to point out was that we are going to have a hotspot collection service offering in the new contract. So this is where we have identified certain illegal dumping hotspots within the city that were noted by our field crews out in the field. This is a flexible hotspot location service. So as time goes by, maybe one area is improved and another one isn't. Wherever the hotspots that we find with illegal dumping within the term of the contract, there will be weekly quarters going through and then scheduling removals. And that is when originally we have in our current contract a weekly unlimited bulky item collection service. In the new contract, it got changed to quarterly. One of them was because we have this hotspot collection service offering, but also we now have additional community benefits such as household hazardous waste collection events, paper shredding events, continued compost giveaway collection programs or giveaways. All of these types of services were requested by the community throughout the years. within our department that we received calls or feedback or recommendations. So we wanted to be able to offer a varied service to the community while still considering costs. Because you have unlimited bulking, then you had all these other extra benefits to the community, it will become at a higher price tag. We wanted to make sure we offered a balanced type of service and varied service, just like a lot of other neighboring cities have. Next slide. There are some important deliberation priorities that the council should consider also in their decision-making process. I wanted to know, I touched upon a couple at the last meeting, and I wanted to touch upon a couple other important ones and give a little bit more information. And one is the workforce reliability, minimizing the risk of labor stoppages. That is a very important consideration when we're thinking about the new contract, because we have had a couple labor stoppages already within the current contract. And there could possibly be an upcoming one, because there are labor negotiations coming up within the year. So we want to make sure that our new agreement has more protected with these type of labor stoppages that may occur. And also, I wanted to note the compliance and regulatory alignment priority. which we do want to ensure that in this contract our Senate Bill 1383 regulatory compliance is complete because in our current contract we have Assembly Bill AB 341 for recycling and AB 1826 for organics, and we are not compliant in those areas. Now, that could definitely be taken care of under the 1383 umbrella, but something to note that we have that type of compliance language in our current contract, but We want to make sure that there is adherence to that in this new contract. So currently our city's overall diversion rate is 15.81%. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that we haven't fully rolled out recycling and organic services within our community. Our current AB 341 compliance for businesses is 25.1%, and for multifamily, only 4.8%. So there is a lot of recycling services that still need to be rolled out. And then finally, our AB 1826 compliance percentage for businesses is 6.6%, and multifamily is 1.5%. So we do want to ensure that in this contract, especially with the new Senate bill and the penalties that incur, there is more enforcement aspect in this law that we ensure from whoever is selected that they will guarantee that we are going to be compliant within this new contract. Next slide. So this represents a significant shift in compliance and reiterates the importance of the new contract transition plan. So we urge careful consideration before implementing expanded programs that require resident or business participation without first providing the necessary time, resources, and education that are going to ensure successful use of these new services. This is a poignant time in the city of Fullerton because we are rolling out recycling in many ways for the first time and organics. And we want to ensure that our community understands how to sort properly. Also because we want to ensure that they don't incur contamination fees, overage fees, things that could add on to their rate unnecessarily. So we want to make sure we have the time as a department to be able to roll this out with whoever you select in a timely manner, but in an effective manner. Simply dropping off a cart is not the solution. We have to make sure they know how to use it. So regardless of the selected proposer, it's also important to know that all proposers will be required to undertake the same necessary steps to implement this contract transition plan. PB, Lupita D Montoya, We have legacy issues, one of them being customer data, whether we have incomplete information or an accurate information so. PB, Lupita D Montoya, Whichever the selected proposer is we're going to have to do a full sweep on the customer data to ensure we start off correctly. PB, Lupita D Montoya, And then we would have a customer service level assessment that comes in what I shared earlier, we would have to write size. and make sure that people have the appropriate service. Also, equipment purchases. We need new or as new vehicles and SB 1383 compliant containers. And the selected firm needs time in which to be able to provide that. We have a full SB 1383 education and outreach campaign planned. And also, we would have to roll out a citywide collection service. Next slide. So today, our proposed motion is for Council to direct staff on the firm or firms on which to proceed with negotiations and finalized service agreement terms and prepare for contract award next slide. So thank you for your time. Council has been provided all the materials needed to review, and we are here to provide any further questions. I have our city solid waste consultant, our solid waste city attorney on hand, and myself should you have any further inquiries.

Okay. Thank you. For me, waste and recycling franchises rarely go out to bid. In fact, in this city, the hauling contract has been historically evergreen. So this opportunity to better the service has been once in a generation, quite frankly, once in two generations. So I'm very pleased that we received robust responses to our RFP. It's reflected in this opportunity. I want to thank every company both here today and that have made a proposal. I appreciate the effort all of you have made. Moreover, I want to acknowledge our staff, our consultant for their professional manner. They've handled this complex issue, given our city council and public time to digest it as well. This is our opportunity to do what's best for Fullerton residents and businesses. I look forward to hearing from my council colleagues on this matter. And I've studied these proposals at great length. I'm sure they have done that as well. Any of our council want to start? All right, sir, go ahead.

Thank you, and thank you for everyone who worked hard on this and for the applicants as well for indulging us with these additional bids here, enhancements. I do have some questions, first of all, before I make any comments. As far as the – with these new – first of all, I want to say that I am – wish that we had scheduled this a little bit differently so that and then given better notice to the public I think this is something that is beyond just five people I think this is just like one of the residents came and spoke is this is an issue that's going to affect everybody it's going to impact all our residents not just Now, but for the next generation. So I think we should have given more ample time. And this should have been scheduled a little differently. However, here we are. I am a little confused, I think, in the for these upfront discussions. I think the staff report is a bit convoluted. So I'd like to see maybe just a little explanation on these two fund advances, the $15 million and the $10 million, if that could be explained a little bit better. And then given the way I'm reading it, the way I understood it, it just it's a bit confusing. concerning to me. So I would like to hear first from staff how they would, how does this translate to actual numbers and costs for residents?

All right. Staff want to take a swing at this or the consultant?

We're going to call up our solid waste consultant, Mike Balliet, who has done an analysis on the upfront costs or upfront payments.

Good evening, Mr. Balliet.

control what the haulers put in front of us for consideration or how they will be paid back. I will say that there were additional adjustment schedules that were requested. But again I've done a detailed analysis and report on that and that is not included in your packet. There is some summary information That is, and again, I think this is a difficult decision for everybody on council. And, you know, I view my job as to try to be of service to that because I've dealt with a lot of contracts, a lot of hauler proposals. I know most of the firms that are proposing. And there are some deep dive insights that I think, even from the public comment, that I'm not hearing a lot of awareness of that. So again, specific to this issue, we have the city attorney to address things regarding rates. But from what I'm seeing, it's basically an offer that's tied to a different CPI schedule that historically would actually increase rates at a faster pace than the CPI schedule the city selected and put in its sample contract to help protect ratepayers. So that's my long answer to a short question.

Yes. Well, thank you for the long answer. I think that's really what I was trying to digest into something that people like us laymen will understand easier. And then that would be translating it to actual numbers. How does this, and you said something that it's going to be increasing costs at a faster pace.

Potentially we can't predict what the schedules will do, but over the past 10 years, uh, Our schedule was 3.48%. One of the proposers that was advancing money, that schedule is 4.1%, and the other was 4.15%, the one that was put forward by Republic.

Yeah. Has this ever been done before? No.

It was pretty common historically, not so much anymore. And again, what I would counsel staff with is that we have looked at your costs of your systems and carefully gone through all the rates that we established in the agreement to make sure that they were justified and tied to the fee that was coming in for it. So again, I haven't been able to look at these offers and how those would be applied, but again, you know, it wasn't something that was requested as part of RFP process. It's something these firms offered in good faith to try to, to win your business. But again, there are some concerns.

Yeah. I mean, I, okay. But, but there's no, can you say that is this best practices for a government, for a contract of this, this type?

It's not unheard of, but in the last few years, I would say it would be more unusual than five or 10 years ago.

Brett Redfearns, M.D. : Has this, and you said you have not fully vetted this particular new variable in these proposals.

Michael Heaney, M.D. : Well, I have in the other study I did. So, basically, over a 20-year term, and again, the contract is for a 10-year term, but one of the firms was asking for 20. So, basically, over a 20-year term, as you can see in one of the tables that was used, rates are going to go up close to 100 percent for everybody, but the two firms that asked for the different CPI schedule, their rates are going to go up 10 to 20 percent more over that term. So, there is a correlation between those impacting rates. that we've demonstrated there through year one, 10, 15, and 20. And again, it's like a dividend stock. You raise them a little bit more early than you're getting a raise upon a raise. And so it's a bit of a rate challenge.

Yeah. So can, can I, if I, if I want to understand this again in layman's term, am I correct in characterizing this as we are taking a cash advance against future billing of our residents?

Mr. That's probably a city attorney question. That's over my pay grade. Did you want to hop in on that, Patrick?

Mr. Because that's how I'm reading this, that we are taking upfront. It's upfront payment, right? It's called upfront payment.

Mr. Good evening, counsel. I'm Patrick Munoz. I'm your special counsel on solid waste issues. from a pure legal standpoint, I would not characterize it that way. The way I would characterize it is simply that you have haulers who are trying to entice you. The city has built into this agreement, like all trash contracts have, a variety of different, I'll loosely call them franchise fees. That's revenue that comes in to the city based on the gross receipts of the contract. City asked for a specific dollar amount, a percentage, in the contract. There's evolving law in this area. I know that there's been a lot of talk about this issue of Proposition 218 and the application of franchise fees. Really what you're looking at is haulers, in essence, offering you a different franchise fee percentage than what you asked for. They're willing to pay it up front. as a means of enticing you. So the legal analysis becomes, does it reasonably reflect the value of the franchise? That's a very complex issue that the courts are still struggling with. So it's my job to make sure with whoever you're going with that we've done an analysis that ties those two points together. And that's something that we're working on. And when you're ready to make a final decision, we'll have an analysis that we'll present to you to to break that out.

Okay. And I have some more questions on this, but would you be able to speak a little louder, please? Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Yes. Happy to do it. Okay.

Who is paying this? The haulers are paying it. But who ultimately is being billed for it? Well, the haulers are paying for it. And I think the best empirical way to demonstrate that is that you have a hauler who offered you some upfront cash and they lowered the rates from what they offered initially. They put some twists in their proposal.

But they are making that money back. Well, maybe they are, maybe they're not. No, it says here they are going to make their money back.

They are taking, the legal analysis is, but they're taking these funds out of funds that they otherwise would have made profits. Sorry.

I just declared another three are different. The two, I think two are more aligned with that. And then the other was right.

I just want to clarify. Sorry. You're our city attorney, correct? I'm special counsel. Yes. Okay. Okay. It says here that there is a recovery of 10 million payment. So they are making the money back.

So the analysis that you're looking at is not something I put together. It was put together by... Can I speak to somebody who did put it together?

Sure. I'm sorry, this is a very... I'm getting legalese, but I'm not getting answers. And I feel like you're defending this rather than actually explaining it. Well, I apologize if that's how it's coming across. I'm getting a little frustrated because I'm trying to explain for the public, for all of us, how this translates to actual costs for the resident. I don't care what they're offering. I want to know how much it's actually costing us, what the real cost is. Because this idea was generated by one individual, not by council directive, not on this council, this individual. So how this came about is also, to me, a concern. So this is trying to appease a political structure of this council rather than actually translating this to actual value. I'm not seeing value. I'm seeing money up front that the residents will end up paying for over time and future residents over the next contract. This is why it says here recovery. There is a cost recovery.

There's a whole heart. Why don't we allow someone to explain that since you have that question? Yeah? Yeah.

Yeah.

I can give you the legal framework for it. I'm not in a position to comment on the political aspects of it.

I have no idea what- Well, I'd like somebody to comment on this, please. Someone explain what these charts are. These are extremely convoluted. You got charts going up. The numbers are going up. Our consultant is saying this is exponential. It seems like to appease the politics of this council for one individual who had some random idea- without any expertise to back it.

I'm sorry, this is my time. This is my time. This isn't your time.

You can't just make accusations to members of this council without having some sort of rebuttal back.

This is my time. Council Member, if I could try and answer your question very bluntly. The numbers are up on the board here. You can see that this is what happens to rates based on the proposal.

And they are going up with this additional of the 10 and 50 million. No question. They're higher now. You have to look at what... All right. I'm going to move on. Since we don't have an explanation on any of this...

If you would just allow the consultant to give... He didn't.

He deferred it to the city attorney?

He just gave it to the... Excuse me. So go ahead, sir. Why don't you give the question that the councilman is asking? Why don't we try and answer that?

Okay. Well, the table that you are referring to was in a... Can you hear me now? Is that better? All right. Sorry. The table that you're looking at was a preliminary assessment of the offer that was in a greater... memo that I put to staff that included a lot of other subjects.

But we didn't get.

I provided it to my client to give them my opinion, not necessarily the review committees. I was concerned about it. Again, what Attorney Munoz brings up is the legal fact that I don't know the cause and effect. I know that it appears like there's money up front and they want to increase rates at a higher rate. But legally, I don't know that there's a tie-in to that. This is something that these guys offered. So, again, what I developed that I think shows you rates will increase at a higher rate under the two firms that made that offer, again, goes back to my point why I originally created the table for staff to say this is an area of concern to look at. Beyond that, I'm not qualified to comment. And I think that addresses the heart of your question.

Okay. I don't think that these offers have actually helped either ETCO or Republic because they've just now increased their costs. It seems like you want to outbid yourself. So, you know, and we're not... We are trying to hire a trash hauler to clean our streets and keep our residential neighborhoods clean, not to clean up the financial messes of the city. And so I don't know. This is a very uncharted territory. I feel like this is something that, to me, it needs to be off the books. And I, you know, I want to say something because I was looking up, you know, the person who did suggest this has a blog and even their blog himself is saying that this is some sort of hidden tax. So I don't understand why we're even going down this path instead of, and diverting our discussion from trying to get the best rate for the residents instead of now packaging something so that we can sort of get some cash upfront. Okay. Let's say we get this cash upfront. I don't know where this council is going to go. Do we have any mechanisms or any protections in place on how we as a city are going to use it?

Let's have the city attorney. Staff, city manager, someone? I think the city attorney has to answer that question.

Well, I mean, there's no protections that were built into their proposals. So I think if the council were to go down the road of choosing one of these that has the upfront lump sum payment, as a council, you'd have to give us direction on how you want to apply that money. Right now, there's no plan for it. I mean, we just came out from an audit yesterday

that showed us that we have no protection mechanisms already in place. We had this $10 million misallocations. And now we're going to ask for more money to come in, and we don't even know what we're going to use it for? I mean, it seems like a little odd.

I don't want to speak for Mr. Munoz, but if we go down this path, we would have to negotiate with terms of contract those guarantees and those protections.

Right. I mean, you know, with CRNR, it was very clear their offer was for roads. That would be in a contract, but the others, cash, I don't know what this is. Seems a little odd. All right. I want to know, as far as the, let's say a different hauler is selected than Republic. have the other unions or non-union haulers uh made any guarantees that they would either become union or an and or absorb any um any employees that are especially we have a lot of republic service employees right now living in fullerton so we are basically putting them out of a job

Yes, I can answer that, council members are. So there are only two that are non-union workforces, but all firms have confirmed that they would, if Republic Services is not selected, they would offer employment to all of their employees and absorb that workforce. So there is that guarantee that no one will lose their job.

From the union?

From the union and non-union firms.

Well, the non-union ones can't take union workers, right? I mean, you're doing...

Well, they've confirmed that they would offer jobs to them.

That's not going to, okay. And you said that in the, as far as like the fleet, I know there was mention on the cleanliness of the trucks and so on. Do you have, you mentioned in their presentation that that's going to be part of the negotiation is upgraded fleet.

Yes, that is one of the requirements of the RFP and the agreement. We wanted newer as new vehicles. And it is an important consideration. Republic Services is the only firm that has not agreed to the full terms of that. They would have 11 new vehicles up front and the remaining would come on the back end over a period of five years. But all the other firms have confirmed that they can begin with new or as new trucks. That is an important consideration.

Okay. On SB 1383, not everyone here guarantees that they would make a deal on that. Am I correct in reading some of this?

In what reference when you say deal assistance with procurement?

Yes. So like, for example, Edco is saying there's a guaranteed procurement credits.

Yes. Okay.

But the others are not, there's nothing else on the others. By the way, these tables are not necessarily, like it would have been really helpful if these tables were categorized by the service itself, you know, just to see. you know, who's, who's, um, you know, just to do a real comparison because here you're going to have to read through all of this and, uh, But anyway, go ahead on that, please.

Yeah, so all the firms did offer assistance with SB 1383 procurement. Some firms have already embedded facilities or anaerobic digestion facilities where they take the organic waste, they process them through those types of facilities, and then they have renewable natural gas that they could then use within their fleet that gives us those SB 1383 procurement credits. So some people offer that type of assistance, unlimited compost usage within the city. So each of the firms did offer, some offered, like Valley Vista offered 250 assistance towards that. So different firms offered different varied assistance with the SB 1383 procurement assistance. Some can offer more than others.

And that includes Republic as well?

Yes, Republic as well.

Okay. So this issue of putting out this RFP to bid, one of the reasons mentioned in the staff report is that Republic was not negotiating properly with us on SB 1383. That was something that was mentioned there. Now, I have my different opinion on this, but that's... why is it that if a new contract guarantees a deal with them on this, why is it that we haven't already done that? Like what's changed in this?

Right. That's why that was one of the considerations I had in the deliberation party. So we really want to ensure that within this new contract, those legislative compliance adherence, you know, language in the contract is actually adhered to and, I have been now with the city of Fullerton for the past three years, so deliberations on amendment negotiations began four years ago, and there was staff turnover on both sides at the time, but we did have a dedicated consultant and city attorney that continued to try to do negotiations. Sometimes when there was staff turnover, it stalled things a little bit, but HF&H Consultants was the consulting firm on the negotiations at the time, and they set the parameters of what the city was looking for. And so we actually did come to an agreement in February, 2024, and we were ready to move forward with agreement terms on having an amendment four and an amendment five, because we have legacy issues with multifamily. So we wanted to have the multifamily legacy issue in a separate amendment, amendment five, so that we could move forward at least with the SB 1383 compliance. But when we were ready to finalize, then we received a different type of package from the incumbent and included an inflation cost that was not agreed upon with no backup documentation. So that stalled the negotiations and you know, every contract that you have, you put those types of legislative compliance actions. But it is very stringent right now in California. And so I have seen in neighboring cities that they are, when they do now have an SB 1383 contract, that different firms or haulers are trying to assist cities to meet those goals because it is a very large state requirement. So we would hope whoever we move forward with takes that very seriously. And then now that we have a dedicated staff within the Public Works Department, we would ensure that we are managing the contract and ensuring that these contract requirements are met and moved forward with.

All right. Thank you. Is there... Have you... Our lack of compliance is SB 1383 with the state, right? So why have we not continued our negotiation with Republic? They are under contract with us until 2027 next year. Why haven't we continued with that?

So we did attempt many times throughout the four years, and we did even attempt with our current solid waste consultant, City Green Consulting, to try to negotiate before we rolled out the RFP. But due to the length of time and delays in the negotiations, our CalRecycle cap would only be extended if we entered into an RFP process. So they gave us a time by this certain time. If you do not conclude successful negotiations with Republic, then if you want an extension, you have to move forward with an RFP.

So basically a new contract is basically the solution to this with these provisions in there that can help us avoid any of this in the future.

That is correct, yes. And it's important to note with this cap that we really are the only city that receives such a lengthy extension. because our contract term end was coming up and we had been compliant with all other aspects of the law. So they saw the city's good faith effort, but most people's caps are concluded and it really is something not to take lightly that we've been given this extension so that we have the time to roll this out appropriately. Right.

And then two more things on the bulk item pickup. I brought this up the last time. Many, many residents have reached out to me and have spoken tonight. This is a very important service in our city. We want to make sure that it is continued. I know not all haulers have this. This is one of the, I think, the best features of the services Republic has. How can we ensure that that continues with all the other applicants?

So I did create a slide for the council that we're putting up right now of the final offers and who included additional bulky item collection service proposals beyond the quarterly that the new contract includes. So Athens Service has also offered now in the final offer unlimited residential bulky item collection. So that would be weekly. CR&R has now, on top of the quarterly, added a monthly multifamily bulky item collection. So at the end of the month, they would be conducting that for the heavy move-in and move-out period to assist multifamily tenants. Edco Disposal has also included a quarterly multifamily bulky item collection, not just residential. And Republic Services has offered a limited single-family collection. a multifamily bulky item collection that's weekly. So this was, as I shared earlier, staff created this new contract with varied services to ensure that the community was heard because they were asking for additional services, like I mentioned earlier, like the household hazardous waste and paper shredding cleanups so we wanted to make sure we offset it costs and offered varied services but if council is truly interested in remaining with the unlimited weekly bulky item collection that's something we can discuss with whoever you select for us to finalize contract terms with so that would be something that if it's a negotiation priority You would just need to let us know when you're ready to move forward.

I think our community has made it very clear we want the unlimited. I mean, I don't know how many times we have to say that. So just that's the negotiation. When we go into a new contract, we need to be building upon services, not reducing some. We need more service for the value, right? You want added value. So I think here in some of them, maybe the message was coming across in the wrong way that it's been reduced. Yeah. No one is timing the time they move out. Or sometimes somebody buys a new fridge and then suddenly a fridge is out there, what, for 15 days until the beginning of the month? No, I think that's a very crucial thing to have.

We also have the hotspot service. So that's something also.

Some people don't have, I mean, what's the senior hotspot? That means you're going to have to get a truck, drive it all the way, lift your fridge, lift your thing. People don't have that ability. So no, hotspots don't work.

So no, the hotspots related to illegal dumping. So that's like a Rover that's going to roam through alleyways or at different hotspots that experience illegal dumping. All right. Well, I wish that was explained better. On the bulky item point to Michelle's point, you know, we are, one of the goals tonight is to, to collect council's priorities that we move forward with negotiations. So I understand that you, you express the community's desire for unlimited, but we really do need it to be a consensus of our council to move that forward.

My last question, and then I'll give some comments. Could you just explain again the length of the contract, 10 year, 20 year?

So in our current agreement, I mean, excuse me, in our new contract proposal, it is a 10 year term with two additional five year extensions based on an audit and a performance level. If we find that the performance and the city and the community is happy with the services, then council can deliberate whether they want to extend an additional five years once and an additional five years twice. There was only one firm that requested the 20-year term. That was EDCO based on their $15 million grant. upfront payment request or offer, I should say. So, but it is a 10-year term with two additional five-year extensions based on performance.

Any other questions? I don't have questions, but I would like to- Let's hold off on your comments. We'll come back. All right. Very good of everybody else to whack at this. All right. Councilwoman, anything?

In terms of questions first, and we'll do kind of comments.

Councilwoman.

Councilwoman, excuse me. I'm sorry. I thought you were looking at me. Okay. Hard to tell.

I just have a couple of clarifying questions. I understand that we agreed or went into the RFP and you guys were negotiating with our current hauler. Even though we're in the RFP, you guys still can't negotiate with our current hauler for the SB bills?

No, the corrective action plan has now moved on and it is only an RFP task-based corrective action plan.

Our current hauler can't? work with the SB 1383 at all?

No, we, we have to have an SB 1383 compliant contract to be able to do that.

Yes. And you guys were negotiating with Republic prior to this.

Yes. On an S to, to amend to an SB 1383 contract.

Okay.

Okay. Any other questions?

No, that's all right now.

All right. Council member, go ahead.

Thank you appreciate it Okay, so I have a couple of other items, along with following up what Council members are was talking about. So talking about the the bulky collection and the difference between you know, single family and multifamily is something that i've paid a lot of attention to. And I understand that it, you know is important for people to have the ability to schedule a. pickup at any time, but I do kind of appreciate this idea of having kind of a scheduled monthly. just so that people know when that's happening in one of these larger communities. And also, you know, to give some kind of relief if something builds up. So I'm just wondering if those two things can coexist together.

We can definitely consider it as my director, Stephen by said, it's a negotiation party, we could definitely note that. And then when we're finalizing contract terms with the selected firm or firm, that could be brought to the table if it's council's desire.

Yeah, because in a multifamily situation, it can be useful that people know, okay, a collection is happening maybe on the 25th of the month or something and kind of plan around that, you know, and have that be a normal thing. And the other thing I'm concerned about is street sweeping. So I noticed that there's a difference in our proposals. Do you happen to have a slide like you just had on the pickup that shows the street sweeping for the different collections?

No, I don't have a street to me because it's the topic is not that today, but we can provide it to you.

Most of them included it in their proposals. So half, at least half of these.

Oh, I see the extra charge, the firm's proposal.

Right. So in the firm's proposals talking about street sweeping specifically.

Oh yeah. So if you go to the, so Valley Vista is offering no cost street sweeping. Once the current contract is finalized, because we have a current street sweeping contract with the vendor, so they have offered no-cost street sweeping services. Universal Waste Systems has offered street sweeping services with an additional 1.75 rate increase. And...

So again, this is helpful. This is a great slide to have up. Thank you. Yes. Yes. So right now, though, we have street sweeping done by Republic or done by a completely different vendor and a different contract.

Completely different vendor on a different contract.

OK. Yeah.

So these were just offerings to the city.

When is our contract up for that? And would those two things coincide? Should that be something we take into account here?

That's actually good timing. So we just extended our current contract with SCA for a year. So it should line up perfectly with this contract.

If that's something we want to go.

Correct.

Do all the companies have that capability or is it just the ones that mentioned it that have the capability? Like CRNR, I don't believe it's explicitly mentioned. but they are very strong in many other things. So is that something that's...

They did offer it prior, but then in this final offer, instead they selected to reduce rates instead of offering the street sweeping services. But I'm sure it's something, again, that if it's a priority and that's the selected firm, we can discuss it.

Who are the in-house researchers? So two of the haulers actually have in-house street sweeping services. I can't recall. I think it's Athens, and I don't recall the second. But the others that did propose street sweeping would probably have to contract that out.

Okay.

I'm going to bring up our consultant. He may have additional information on that.

I think the way that those two things intersect might be a little more complex, too, because people do pay –

for litter abatement and street sweeping within the new agreement. So, again, you get fees to pay somebody to do street sweeping. So, for me, the free street sweeping offer isn't great because you're already collecting money for it, so you may have to amend those fees. So, again, that's my two cents on the street sweeping. You're already collecting fees to pay for it, which I think is better because whoever pays for the bill and demand service be done. And if it goes through haulers, some of them have their own equipment, but I've seen a lot of them also contract through a third party. And now you're talking to your franchise hauler to get the third party to do the job. You're much better off getting the money in the city's hand to hire and control that vendor. And that's the fee structure that we set up. So again, if you negotiate with one of these firms that's offered free street sweeping, you know, maybe you can negotiate that to help with rates or something. But again, that's getting to the brass tacks negotiation table. But you are covered through a fee for street sweeping regardless.

Okay. And then looking at some of these, you know, downtown improvements that folks are talking about and comparing that, there's multiple different offers here. Kind of in your estimation, thinking about, you know, We've got CRNR with the 300,000 beautification. We've got Edco with a whole new facility. We've got all these other, there was a company that said specifically they wanted to put their offices on Harbor. So in staff's opinion, kind of what do you think would be the most impactful for our downtown? Positively impactful, I should say.

I do think having a dedicated city office with quite a few firms have proposed that would be a great benefit to the city, to the community, especially if it's in our downtown area off Harbor. Because you could come in and talk about your bill, have any questions, if there's missed pickups, anything that may come up. You've got to face not just a customer service line. So I think that would be very beneficial to our city and to the community. Definitely one of the things we have also incorporated that is already a part of our new contract is that within our downtown area, within 10 feet of the enclosure, if there's any uncontainerized waste, and that means the waste is on the floor, that would be picked up. So that's part of our contract agreement. power washing, you know, weekly cleanings, things of that nature. So all those, they have very downtown district programs. I know Athens has in this final offer proposed a mini sweeper in Porter. So a few of them, Porter just means someone that's checking downtown, making sure everything's working great. So all those types of benefits could definitely be impactful to our community.

Yeah, and something like CRNR's $300,000 beautification and maintenance as broad, that could include the power washing, for example. So power washing is something that I've heard in the community that they're very concerned about for downtown, cleaning up our downtown, making it more presentable, you know, that kind of issue.

So the requirement to power wash the downtown enclosures is built into the base contract for any hauler. So that's going to happen regardless of who you pick. The $300,000 that CRNR is proposing is for capital improvements to those enclosures.

Okay. Okay. You know, and I just, I know we're not going broadly on comments now, but I will say that I am always strongly pro-union. That's something I think that the city has been in the past. And, you know, we have unions representing every single one of our other units and employees and police officer and fire. And to me, I think that we need to stick with that. So I guess my question for staff to make this a question would be, you know, if we did go with a non-union firm, what would Do you see any impacts of that and maybe that'd be a question for our our consultant in terms of Labor how that would affect our Labor agreements, maybe the city manager. might know that I mean it seems to be such a huge switch if we decided to do something non Union essentially.

Well, it wouldn't have any impact on our internal labor relations with our own employees, if that's what you're asking. It's completely separate. My question would be on that, related to yours, is if a non-union hauler were to get the contract and then agree to hire the former Republic employees, would that be on a unionized environment or a non-unionized environment?

Well, from reading the proposals, it seemed to be very much non-unionized.

But back to your point in terms of, you know, would that impact our relationships with our current unions? I don't see one having to do with the other.

One impact that a non-union firm could have is that we wouldn't have the labor stoppage issued to consider. That would be one thing from a non-union perspective. And the two firms that non-union did offer to hire on the workforce, but I think, like Eddie said, I think if they are selected and they chose to go to that non-union firm, I don't believe they would be in a union anymore.

I will say, as a person who's been a public university employee you know, pretty much my entire career, 25 years or so, I had one experience of being in a non-union job where they promoted me into a non-union with better pay. It was absolutely the worst protection I ever had. And then my salary got cut to 60%. And that is how I ended up coming back to Cal State Fullerton instead of staying where I was. So it ended up being a blessing that I could come here, but I wouldn't recommend it for anyone. Even if you do get a little base jump in pay, you don't have any protections later. So I would very much be very strongly pro-union.

All right, thank you. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, anything to add? Yes, a few questions you'd like to ask. A few questions.

Yeah, I actually wanted to go back to one of the earlier questions because I think to Council Member Zara's point, it's actually the three different offers in the proposal related to upfront money. And two of them, to your point, I take a different view because my take is that two of them absolutely are in a legal tax. And I think they are essentially high interest loans that the city or the rate payer specifically is financing, right, over the long term. And so that may not be what it's called. And frankly, I wanted to go back to that because The flip side of that is I also don't think if there's upfront money, I mean, in my view, without those strings attached, yeah, I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, right? Like in the case of CR&R where they did offer upfront money for the roads, I think that's, you know, a great strategy, I think, on their part. So I know we're going to keep it to questions right now, so let me get back to it. I wanted to find out, was their direction provided to staff or provided by staff to any of the applicants over, you know, Like terms and things like that. I mean, or is this something that the haulers all, I mean, they came up with on their own, the amounts, the terms and that sort of thing.

Yeah, no, this is, this is not something that was directed by staff. It is. whatever they propose to the city. So they had a best and final, a second best and final option because we did one after the interviews. So such a competitive process. We gave everybody a chance to submit a best and final. And then of course this last time, you know, council directed one more. So no, we just provided, you know, they had to resubmit the same pricing form they did before, but anything that they've proposed is of their own merit.

Okay. And I'd be curious either for, you know, our city attorney or for, you know, Mr. Munoz, who's here in attendance as well. Can you, I mean, maybe compare or, I guess, kind of address the similarities between those potential agreements and, you know, sort of this case up in Oakland, Zolle versus Oakland, because as I read it, I mean, it seems like this would be a clear-cut case for, I mean, you know, a resident to align with Howard Jarvis taxpayers and initiate a suit against the city, and, you know, we'd be in a tough spot.

Well, I certainly don't want to pretend that it's not an issue. I mean, it's the hot topic. You know, the question is, is there a way for this to occur where it's not a, quote-unquote, a hidden tax? If that's what it is, that's what the Zolle court said you can't do. And the analysis is, does it reasonably reflect the value of the franchise. And, you know, those are difficult analyses to do. We need to know. I have no idea if this is something you're interested in. We certainly didn't suggest it. And Council Member, you made a comment that you thought I was defending it before. I'm not defending one way or another. My job is to give you objective legal advice without having any bias towards any one of these proposals. So I want to make sure if you're interested in one of these proposals, that I can go back and figure out if I can come back to you and say, yeah, I think this is lawful. And if you're not interested in it, then I don't have to go through that exercise. But the key issue is, is it a hidden tax? And the Zolle Court came up with a bunch of examples of things that are a hidden tax. But it also came up with a bunch of examples of things that would not be a hidden tax. And that case went back down to the Court of Appeal and it got settled. So we don't have the benefit of actually knowing what the true answer is, other than knowing now that the Supreme Court has identified a bunch of issues. So it's a very complicated area of the law.

Let me add this, and that is that if we go down this path of the money being fronted, we have to have assurances from counsel that we can legally defend that position. So he's going to have to go through that analysis and present to us an appropriate legal defense to avoid the very challenge you're talking about.

Sure. And if you get to a point where you really want to have a real nuts and bolts conversation about this, if you're interested in one of these proposals that has – this, you know, concern, we really should be having a closed session conversation so I can give you very candid legal advice about it. You know, at a high level, what I can tell you very comfortably in public is that the question is, is what the Zolli Court said, do all, not just the franchisees, all these fees, do they reasonably reflect the value of the franchise? And I know that sounds like, you know, a bunch of lawyer hooey, you know, what does that mean? And that's a, you know, you could have a whole law school class on what that actually means. So it's complicated. Sure. Thank you.

I appreciate that. You know, my next question, I believe, is a little more practical, probably focused at staff. And that is related to like the implementation of this plan, right? So let's say there is a change, we end up selecting a different waste hauler. What does that look like in terms of, you know, transition period or rollout and, you know, the impacts that the city is going to face?

Yeah, that's a good question. So some of the firms already submitted their plan on how to roll out SB 1383 into their proposal. Some have even already completed the routes, have their route map. So a lot of them have done their due diligence. But like I said, We do need to ensure the first thing we need to do is any firm would have to start analyzing the customer data. That's number one, because currently we don't have a full complete multifamily list with the number of units at each property, which is an issue because that ties to. ties to compliance percentages. So first we would need, they would have to do like a boots on the ground or a assessor, you know, review. They would have to check all the customer data and make sure all our customers are accounted for in each sector. And then I think the SB 1383 education and outreach plan would be key while this is happening in tandem as well. And so this is a big deal for our community. So we look at direct mailers, community workshops, things of that nature. Even they have done a lot of multifamily workshops at the multifamily complexes. We did a pilot in one of our senior community mobile parks actually on Valencia because we thought if we can get seniors to see if they can sort and roll out, you know, and it's been very successful currently. But there's a complete education outreach plan. They just grab the customer data and then it's time to right-size. So you would go to businesses, you would go to multifamily complexes. There's also an option too that this Senate bill allows waivers. So we would have to do a complete waiver assessment. Not all businesses or multifamily complexes, they may be able to receive a waiver based on waste generation or physical space constraints. A lot of our older multifamilies may not have the room to include an additional recycling or organics cart. So you have to do that review and process.

Well, I will admit, I mean, my question was not necessarily related to the compliance portion of it. It was just more of the practical rollout because if you think about it, making the switch, right? Like a lot of folks, especially residential clients don't understand that. commercial properties, apartment buildings, office buildings, they have bins, some of those bins, and it's interesting because it was alluded to in the residential context, but the reality is some of those bins have like the pullout service where people actually have to physically remove them, so there's extra costs. Then I think the one kind of complicating factor here as well is that commercial clients are not only paying through their utility bills through the city, the trash fees, but they're also paying Ben rentals and other direct fees to Republic. And so, you know, my hope would be, you know, as, as part of the shakeup that, that some of these legacy issues, the city has faced here, like finally get addressed. And I think that was part of a kind of, you know, the catalyst for, for part of this as well. Right. There were a lot of longstanding issues and challenges with, with Republic and, you know, unfortunately through those issues and then kind of the inability to negotiate, you know, we kind of found ourselves here. And so I think it's actually presented us with a great opportunity as a city to have those discussions, whether that means staying with Republic or, or in fact making a change. So I just have one more question. And that is, I know there were recommendations made sort of with the first batch of, you know, with the first report, right. There was rankings I think shared by staff. And I noticed the second phase did not include those staff rankings. And I'm curious if there were internal notes or dialogue that, that,

know to that to a similar like to a similar end and if you'd share those mr consultant you want to come up mr bellier and uh give us your okay ranking as it were at the uh mayor pro time request well again previously you had a review committee of staff and i did not have a vote um

So, again, I shared a memo with staff that gave me my opinions after the best and final, and those were just mine. So, you know, going from bottom to top, again, I do not dislike Republic Services. I have audited their operations in Florida, Georgia, Texas, Nevada, Northern and Southern California. I've worked with them in the City of Costa Mesa, City of Los Alamitos before the transition. They're typically one of the best firms in the industry. My issues were specific to Fullerton and some specific items. Number one, the rates. Their commercial rates are by far the highest. And so, for that reason alone, they wouldn't be in my top three. I do have compliance concerns that weren't addressed in their proposal. In order to fix a problem, you have to identify what it is. So you gave them a rate increase to put you in AB 1826 compliance. As Michelle said, you're at, what, 6% compliance with AB 1826. So the AB 341 issue, you used to have mixed waste processing in that city. That was the great invention of the Terramina brothers and Terramina industry. And you had them sort through your trash, pull out recycling. That's an AB 341 program that counts as compliance. That was taken away, and you were given no alternative. You were given no price break in that. So, those are two service issues that weren't addressed, weren't resolved. So, for me, great firm in a lot of areas, but I don't think they've been a great firm for Fullerton for the last three or four years. Athens would be fifth for me. And that's truly a pricing issue. Again, they have great capabilities, great facilities, great service, and great recommendations, but they have a residential rate that is the highest and commercial rate that's also one of the highest. I hate to have universal waste drop to fourth for me because I think the Blackburn family is wonderful and they do a great job in Los Alamitos. But I think as far as the low cost nonunion provider I do congratulate the ad hoc committee on throwing Valley Vista back in because they have the only high diversion organic waste processing facility that CalRecycle has approved in Southern California. That would give you the ability for multifamily properties to just have two containers to return to mixed waste processing and right now Universal is working to get that type of designation for their facility, but they don't have it. And Valley Vista lowered their price to the point where they're very close, and so for facility alone, you know, that dropped Universal down to fourth for me. EDCO was my number one. I agreed with staff initially, but I think the initial... figure i think they raised their commercial rate slightly um it it dropped them down and and asking for a 20 year and tying that to the facility that they're going to put in the city added enough variables to move them down so valley vista moved into second and then crr just by being good or very good across the board i think was the best overall offer very low commercial rates a competitive rate for residential. And so that's what I shared in the memo. And again, the tables that you're seeing were my kind of red flag on upfront payments. Not that I'm an attorney and I know why they offered them, but again, they are a cost. And so that's why I did those tables. So now you have my study and my personal opinion, not necessarily staff's. All right. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, any other questions you have?

know i think that's it okay um let's uh sorry if i may i have just one quick follow-up question uh since valley bestow was brought up to number two i just have a quick follow-up on that um You said it was brought up for you to a number two ranking, in your opinion.

Yeah, I think there were four or five out of the nine for the review committee, or five or six, sorry.

What's striking for me, aside from the non-union aspect, is that they service smaller cities normally. Because here, the city that's used as comparable is El Monte with only 100,000 residents. And so do they have the capacity to scale up to a city of our size and need in addition to, because we have also a university, you've got all kinds of big facilities. And also, didn't they just have to renegotiate their contracts with the city of Cyprus because they came in low and then

at the reading no that was actually done in the i think their second amendment they've had four and i just did a compliance review of them where i looked at their earnings and their margins and all of that and they they actually did fairly well on that that review okay um so again my my my feeling is if they have a track record doing compliance with 15 or so cities they go up to pasadena they go down to cyprus they serviced industry forever pico pico rivera but anyways i think they could handle your city i think their facility definitely could it's one of the leading facilities i think as far as size and ability to handle traffic um but again that that's your call for me personally i wouldn't be afraid of them being able to do it that's why they would be my my number two okay okay any other questions

All right, very good. I think I'll kick off the comment part. My top three were CR&R, Valley Vista, and EDCO. How about now? Great. Sure. My top three were CRNR, Valley Vista, and EDCO. EDCO, I had some concerns with while they were third. I was concerned in the same manner that Councilman Zara pointed out because of their impressive $15 million upfront payment to the city. It's really difficult to ignore. I'm pretty sure they all read the newspaper and have seen added ample coverage of the fact that the city of Fullerton does have its financial challenges. So I'm sure in some way that this is kind of their proposal that it doesn't ignore that and addresses that. That said, it comes with very specific strings attached. EDCO wants a 20-year fixed-term contract, which is twice as long as the original RFP, which is 10 years. It obligates us to a very long-term business relationship that may not be best over that length of time. 20 years is an incredibly long time. I don't know that I'm going to be alive then. Certainly none of us are going to be on council then. And I don't know that it's a good idea for us to lock ourselves into that kind of contract. The contract also increases CPI by 4.01%, compounding every single year. That is extraordinarily expensive at a time when we are all looking to save as residents and businesses. Loosely, the contract increases costs annually by $1.3 million annually. so to councilman zaro's point of how is this recouped well that's how sir uh over the length of the contract it's a near 42 million dollar increase in cost of service so that's not nothing um and i think we have to look at that because that's a cost that's going to be borne by our residents and businesses and that's simply unacceptable to me so my top two again based fundamentally on where their redraws were at. And I think that process of having them go back, sharpen their pencils was a good one. I think in the end we are going to get the best possible rate, uh, and service for our city. And that's CRNR Valley Vista. The one caveat I have to that, uh, CRNR is a union, uh, Valley Vista non-union and, uh, is Republic. And that is, uh, based on the fact that their drivers all know the route. They're already here. They're a union outfit. I get it that they haven't been terrific in the last three years, but I don't know that we have either as a council, and you can blame me for that. So I want to give some grace there. So if I were to make a staff recommendation right now, again, we're not deciding anything right now. It is that city council embargo ends tonight. Right now, so far, none of us have the opportunity to be educated by the vendors or the potential vendors one-on-one. It's all gone through staff and our consultant, which is fair up to this point. But I think if we're really going to do this in a manner that makes sense for our residents, this is a 10-year contract. We all have to equally be able to be at the seat at the table, have a seat at the table, and be able to vocalize what our priorities are that go beyond just this public meeting, but also have public hearings from our public, hear from them, because this isn't a contract that we're going to, again, decide today. So what I would like is, and what I would give staff direction, if there is counsel appetite to do so, is to end the embargo, begin final negotiating terms with Republic, Valley Vista, CRNR, for a final contract provider choice by this council in September. And that is my direction. Go ahead, sir.

I don't mind removing the embargo since we started that. I think it would help. However, I think it should be structured in a way that's that these meetings are not held at cafes and coffee shops, but actually at the city and with staff present with notes taken. I think it's important for transparency. So that would be on that. As far as the Valley Vista, they came with a really good proposal. However, I'm not totally convinced that they can serve or scale up to a city of our size, especially on a long-term contract like 10 years. I think that would be quite risky. It's a risk, and I don't think we should be getting into contracts, putting our residents at risk. They are also non-union, which to me is also putting some of our residents at risk as well of losing their jobs. So to me, that's a non-starter for there. Universal, same situation as well. So I would be excluding those two. Athens came quite high. So now CR&R is, to me, standing out as a decent proposal. It's lower on the commercial rate. which is a fair contract. What I would like to see, though, is an unlimited bulk item removal and maybe a little better deal on the senior rates for... republic they are the incumbent so i'm always in favor of giving them the opportunity uh to uh come back with a rebuttal i said that last time i stand by this only because it helps uh you know avoid a disruption in our service for our residents so it's only fair to give them that a rebuttal they disappointed me in coming back with this $10 million thing. I must admit that because it was not something that anybody on this council or staff had requested. So I'm not sure where all of this is coming from. However, they need to do better on their commercial rate, I think. And then we need to make sure that we are in compliance on all regulatory aspects. And lastly, with EDCO, Oh, and then on these advances, they need to go. I mean, I don't think we should be negotiating anything new or unprecedented or complicated. This should be a simple contract for trash removal. We cannot complicate it with any kind of... legal challenges down the line and uh hidden fees and all these things that we just are putting a burden on our residents and future residents so that needs to go immediately uh edco uh same thing i think for them if they they would be on my list if they remove that whole 15 million dollar advance and then just go back to basic uh rates and services So those are my thoughts, and we need to make sure that our workers, no matter who is chosen, are taken care of. Thank you. Good thoughts.

All right. Council Member Charles, any questions?

Yes, thank you. Okay, so I hear some agreement here. I'm also thinking CR&R is looking like a standout proposal, and as I said, for me, being non-union is a non-starter. It just is. And also I heard at Valley Vista's proposal, no support whatsoever for really strong, I mean, at least Universal Waste said that they put it to a vote of their employees and their employees decided to be non-union. I disagree with that decision, but you know, that's what they decided. But yeah, Valley Vista, I'm not in favor of that, but I understand that. where my colleagues are coming from in terms of leaving them in the mix, so I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, you know, throw a fit about it, I'd say. Where public services, I understand, of course, that they, you know, deserve a chance to keep at this and without that $10 million upfront, maybe coming in with much more competitive rates. One thing I want to say about CRNR that I think really stood out to me in my kind of different perspective on this council, two things. First, going back to Mr. Otter's comment as the treasurer of an HOA, I don't know if he's still here, but, ah, hiding back there, thank you. And he also sent us the full scope of what he had done, and I've spoken to him as well about this. He's been doing such great work, and as someone who also lives in a complex that has an HOA, we have about 60 plus units, they're town homes, I'm a renter, but the person who owns it, of course, pays into these things and all those HOA dues. And of course, most of my neighbors are owners and we talk quite a bit. And also, Mr. Otter's done a lot of legwork in talking to, I think, 14 other HOAs in the city, not just on the east side. And really, it's such an important issue that the multifamily... does not get treated the same as your industrial commercial. It's just a different entity. And what I appreciate about CR&R is that they came in recognizing that in their updated proposal. I noticed they specifically called it out that they want to negotiate if need be, on that multifamily separate from commercial. And if you look at Mr. Otter's analyses, which will be in the public record, you'll see that theirs is very close. Their single family versus multifamily is very close in his analysis as well. So I do think that equity is important because it shouldn't necessarily matter if you're living in a home that you own versus a home that you rent or those other things. And there needs to be some parity there as much as there possibly can be. The other thing I thought was really interesting about CR and our proposal, and this is coming not only as a public health person, but also in my own personal family life, I have quite a few people who need this, that they're talking about things like residential sharps collections. They're talking about compost being delivered directly to people's houses. I think they're really looking at some sustainable practices, some good public health practices, some things that we don't see very much in this city. One thing that I would love for us to have in downtown, if you are in other cities, you might see this where your downtown restaurants and establishments actually have sharps collections in their bathrooms and for various reasons. And people who have type two diabetes or any other kind of condition have these kinds of things. Honestly, Ozempic and all of those things these days, right? Those are all needle injected. Rheumatoid arthritis drugs, needle injected. I mean, there's so many things that people, are doing with these sharps at home for personal health reasons. And I think having a company that actually acknowledges that that is a difficult thing to dispose of. At this point, you have to order, at least from what I know, you have to get something either from your health care provider or order from Amazon, and then you have to take it back to your health care provider. It's a difficult process. Whereas if we made it something easier that our waste hauler was actually paying attention to, I think that would help out a lot of people, especially a lot of seniors. who have to deal with these kind of drugs. So I appreciated those. And I'm happy to give Republic Services another chance. And if you're still interested in hearing from Valley Vista, then okay, so be it.

Okay, thank you. Councilwoman?

Thank you.

Anything to add?

Well, since I've been with the RFP proposal since day one, I've been able to look at all the information on the different proposals that all the companies have submitted, talk to staff about this. So I really appreciate everybody's hard work on this process. Based on the presentations that were given, my My picks have changed over the course of this process, I definitely enjoy. Reading on everybody's their Christmas wish list basically of what they want to give the city and how the city wants to work with them and. My top three is going to have to be. I wanna work with Republic Services and give a fair opportunity for what they've already started with our city. It sounds like that they had contracts in place that they can be compliant with everything that we've talked about. They know our routes. They've heard what we need to fix our trash services. They hear what we want now. And I think they're listening to what the city has been asking. There are still concerns that I have, and that should be worked out. I would like to lift the embargo so we can have conversations with our haulers. I enjoyed reading how Valley Vista can give no-cost street sweeping. That looks great. And procurement support for the SB 1383. So that would be a great one for me as well. Their rate is on the lower end, which I'm looking at. And I really appreciate Athens proposal, it is the highest they don't have any hidden costs coming in the future. So it's very appealing to me, but it is so high that is really hard to put on a residence right now that rate hike. We are in a financial crisis. It's not a secret. And so if later on we have to do a tax initiative, et cetera, et cetera, I just don't want to add more on our residents. So my picks are those, and I'll let city staff go from there.

OK. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, any comments, sir? Close this out before we start.

Yeah, first, actually a few comments. First, I do want to thank Mr. Otter because I will say, you know, the analysis that he prepared, I think was probably one of the most valuable that we've seen during this entire process. And that was a question that I had had for Director Bice several times throughout this process. What's going on with the commercial rates? Because largely what happens is commercial property owners end up subsidizing residential. And as you can see across this table, that's done at a disparity of different rates. And I think it's really important for us to understand as we move forward, these rates are proposed. They're not yet set in stone. And I would encourage staff and the team that's negotiating with whichever waste hauler gets selected – that they need to do a better job narrowing these margins. And frankly, if there's an opportunity for us to incorporate some citizen engagement or involvement in that process, I know Mr. Otter has offered his services. And I think he would certainly be a great resource to our city in terms of being able to prepare some additional analysis and advise. So having said that, I think what's important here is that you know, we need to realize we're up here to take care of our residents. We can trust that the employees of these individual companies are going to make the best decisions for themselves based on what they feel is best for their career path. But the reality is it's important for us to sit up here and make the best decision that we can make for our community. That means finding the best overall value. As I looked at this process, I think there was value in going to a best and final. I think there was additional value in maybe bringing back a shorter list than maybe having, what do we have, six or seven, I think, that came back. I would have preferred an abbreviated list personally because I think that put a lot of people through an unnecessary exercise when perhaps they could have been cut out from that list early on. But having said that, As I look at it tonight, I think I've got, you know, I would actually be prepared to go forward with the top two. I think CRNR, clearly my number one favorite, EDCO a second. But again, I want to point out, you know, similar to the comments we shared earlier, The upfront money, I think, look, I'm not opposed to the upfront money as long as it is just that. But to the extent the city and specifically the ratepayer is going to be essentially making a high interest payment on some sort of loan vehicle, right? And I think the case of Edco, they proposed it over 20 years. That to me is a non-starter. So- If we're going to look at something like that, you know, the reality is there are plenty of other contracts the city has dealt with OCPA included where there's other public benefits that are provided. I know Republic currently provides public benefits to the city. And I think, you know, seeing that, hey, there's funds for roads and streets and things like that, I think are very important. I think it's also important to know that that's not just a check to the general fund where staff's going to try to allocate those funds for payroll salaries and things of that nature. I think it needs to go specifically to what it's intended for. Roads and streets, I think, is perfectly suitable. It's something that I would support. Now, I think I do have a few other comments. And let's see. Make sure I got everything here. on that in the questions let's see you know well actually sorry this is this is a question i guess not not a comment but uh do we have any idea how much we've spent like on additional consulting attorneys fees and staff fees because of this whole ordeal right because of republic's unwillingness or inability to come to the negotiating table early on how much money we've had to spend on top of

I don't have the exact figure. I could put something together and get that to council. I don't have a total figure.

I mean, certainly we're mid six figures. Why don't we get an exact figure and get it?

Yeah, I can definitely put something together and get it to council.

No, it was part of the public record.

Oh,

All right. Anything else?

You know, just the last comment would be that I think we should put, you know, really the bulk of the compliance on the back of the waste hauler. That's not something that we should be, you know, footing the cause for. I think that's something they need to take care of and should address as part of their service. So, you know, with that, again, made my comments about CRNR, Nedco.

All right. Uh, looks like we're all pretty much in agreement with moving CRNR forward. I, I heard from the majority of my colleagues that they are in agreement with Republic, uh, moving forward as they are our current hauler. These are two union haulers as well as I'd like to, uh, and I would appreciate, uh, council supporting me on a non-union hauler just to see like for like with, uh, something that is number two from our consultant via his own, uh, words this evening, um, by, uh, the mayor pro tems question, which is Valley Vista, to lift the embargo. I'm making this as a motion because the city attorney tells me I have to do that, even though tonight was to provide direction. As part of that motion, I do want to mandate in that that there are two public meetings that these haulers are at, the three that move forward, should this be council direction to do so, that they answer the questions that the public has, address the requests the public may have as well. This is a 10-year contract. Fix this down for an incredible length of time, certainly more than I'll be on this council. So with that said, one other thing that I wanted to clarify is that Republic lift their $10 million fee or, I'm sorry, gift to the city, however that looks like, and incorporate that back into rates when this comes back before us in September. And with that, I will seek a second.

I second.

Mr. Mayor, I had a question actually going back. How far do we need to get into, because I know there were questions, council members already had questions about kind of refining some of the specifics of the proposal. At what point do we need to get into that? Because I know I had some comments and thoughts as well. Is that something that needs to come up tonight?

No, you can do, part of my motion is lifting the embargo.

I actually wanted to self-impose an embargo because I don't want to, you know, don't call me, please.

You can do that. You can do that. uh but that that's part of that so all of our concerns get addressed because in the end we are the voice of the our our constituents so uh is there a second second so just before we vote could i get some clarification on the lifting of the embargo okay this is this is what the lifting of the embargo is uh i actually like it the manner in which uh councilman uh zara said The notes thing, that's not necessary, but at City Hall with staff, make the appointment.

Okay. Are we talking one-on-ones? Is that what we're asking for?

Yeah. However, the folks here on the dais have their schedule. I'm not going to determine that for them. And this motion is just selecting the top three? Top three final negotiations. It gets brought back in September. We decide what we're doing. And then that will take into consideration the directions as far as the details that we put. I'm not going to speak for you, sir. That's why I said lift the embargo. Let you speak for the constituents you represent.

Just to clarify, that's what I was going to say. PR&R and Republic?

And you've asked that the Republic...

uh incorporate that 10 mil back into that rate okay sure possible to vote individually on I I heard all of us talk about CR and R um I heard you're right a majority talk about Republic really I I'm not I'm not I'm not interested in that I I I don't want to belabor this and make this longer than it has to be go ahead include everything that he included but only CR and R and Republic And then we would vote on Valley Vista's inclusion separately. Do I have a second for that?

Okay. Is there a second? All right. There's a substitute motion. Madam Clerk, please call roll.

With the contingency of removing the 10 million. Same contingencies through CRNR and Republic being the two candidates. Okay. Go ahead.

Council Member Charles. Aye. Council Member Valencia.

No, I wonder for the first motion.

Council Member Zara.

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Dunlap.

No.

And Mayor Jung.

No. So we'll go back to the original motion. Madam Clerk, call the roll.

Council Member Charles. Aye. Council Member Valencia.

Aye.

Council Member Zara.

Aye.

I don't have a column for sure. I'm just kidding. I'll make it work. Mayor Pro Tem Dunlap.

Aye.

And Mayor Jung.

Aye.

Passes unanimously.

All right. Very well. Thank you, everybody. Have a great Fourth of July. Happy birthday, America.