Starting in February the Palm Coast administration and council began preparing for bidding out the city’s valuable garbage contract, as it does every five years: the contract with Waste Pro, the hauler that’s been providing the service since 2007, expires May 1.
The Request for Proposal was issued on Aug. 4. Two companies responded: Waste Pro and FCC Environmental Services, originally a Spain-based company whose American operation is based in Texas. Both were proposing prices that would be substantially higher than what customers are paying now. (See FCC Environmental’s bid here, and Waste Pro’s here.)
On Nov. 8, Palm Coast issued a Notice of Intent to Award the contract to FCC Environmental, even though FCC’s prices would have been higher. The decision would still have to have been ratified by the City Council, which was expected to review the proposal in January. But it would have been very unlikely that the council would override its own staff’s selection committee, which would have applied rigorous selection criteria to make its recommendation. (See: “Garbage Rates Will Go Up at Least 30% If Current Service Is Maintained as Palm Coast Draws Only 2 Bids from Haulers.”)
For Palm Coast residents, it would have been a sea change from a 15-year relationship with Waste Pro’s familiar deep-green trucks, though the company and the city–not to mention some of its residents–have had it rough on and off over the past few years: earlier this year the city even threatened to sever its contract with the hauler because of too many recurring failures on the job.
Four days after the city issued its Notice of Intent, Waste Pro through its attorney, Amy Tingley, filed a bid protest, claiming FCC Environmental had not been forthcoming in its bid documents with the number and amounts of fines it incurred for poor service.
The city administration reviewed the protest, found that both companies had not been forthcoming in that regard, and that the wording of the city’s RFP had been wanting for the kind of clarity and precision that would pre-empt misinterpretations at a time when one company’s contractual language may not be the same as another’s. Put another way, all three parties involved had missed the mark in one way or another.
Today, the city alerted both Waste Pro and FCC Environmental that it was rejecting both their bids. The city in a brief statement issued at 5 p.m. said it was preparing to re-issue an RFP from scratch. Brittany Kershaw, the city’s chief spokesperson, sad that will likely take place “sometime in December. It’ll probably take a couple of weeks to update all the terminologies.”
The rejection of the bids means that the “Waste Pro bid protest is now moot,” as Helena Alves, the city’s finance director, noted in an email to both companies’ law firms late this afternoon.
The focus of the protest were the fines in excess of $10,000 that the companies were assessed for poor performance in various jurisdictions. Palm Coast had included that criteria among its performance measures, reflective as it could be of a company’s ability top meet its contractual obligations to customers’ satisfaction. The measure can be subjective: Palm Coast levies fines on waste Pro when, say, routes are missed. But Flagler County, which piggy-backs on Palm Coast’s contract with Waste Pro, does not levy fines on the hauler for poor service.
Tingley in her protest–addressed to Alves–claimed that “FCC failed to disclose the monthly performance-related assessments in excess of $10,000 that have been imposed by Polk County, Florida, for 47 consecutive months. Rather than provide the candor required by this procurement process, FCC misled the City into believing it had only de minimus monetary consequences from failing to meet performance standards.” (It’s actually de minimis, an avoidable malapropism with uses of the words “trivial” or “minimal.”)
Tingley included a chart that showed monthly fines of between $20,000 and nearly $40,000 every month, averaging from $24,000 to $33,000 a month depending on the stretch, and totaling $1.2 million over 43 months. Tingley described it as a “material misrepresentation” that couldn’t possibly have been an oversight, and argued that FCC ranked higher than Waste Pro because of the apparent difference in fines. But it isn’t at all clear from the attorney’s letter why those fines were levied, if they were.
Tingley’s figures could not be independently verified. Inigo Sanz, FCC Environmental’s chief executive officer, and Erica Holloway, the company’s government affairs director, did not return calls or emails before this article published.
Rather than fine the hauler, Polk County withholds dollar amounts if performance standards are not met, calibrating the withheld amounts to the failed performance measures. The RFP’s wording was encompassing enough to include all “administrative fines, liquidated damages or other penalties… assessed or… deducted,” as Tingley pointed out. She said FCC’s “omission” couldn’t possibly have been an oversight. But it is also possible that FCC and the Polk County contract interpret or define assessments differently.
The Polk County contract’s section on “Performance Failures” includes no such withholdings, nor does it include fines for failed service on specific routes, the way fines are imposed in Palm Coast. Rather, FCC is fined $25,000 “per incident” if and when it happens to mix commercial and residential solid waste, or if it mixes recyclables with other trash, $25,000 per incident if it falsifies a record. So a comparison between the types of fines Waste Pro is assessed in Palm Coast and those FCC is assessed in Polk may not be a just comparison. Further, the Polk County contract specifies that “administrative charges assessed … shall constitute liquidated damages, not penalties, for the Contractor’s breach” of the agreement–wording that may also provide room for differing interpretations of “penalties,” and qualify charges of omission.
Regarding the withholding of payments, the contract calls for the county to retain 5 percent of each monthly payment, with the monthly evaluation of services rendered determining how much of that will be retained. The decision is based on a set of detailed criteria (see the criteria here or the full, original 2016 Polk County contract with FCC here. It was valued at $10 million at the time, in league with Palm Coast’s Waste Pro contract.)
The Polk County contract also includes substantial performance incentives, or additional payments, when FCC exceeds its performance measures: the equivalent of 10 percent of residential service collection payments, determined by the county and distributed quarterly. It isn’t clear how those incentives may or may not figure in the bottom line calculations of fines versus incentives.
Palm Coast’s criteria for fines, in comparison to Polk’s, are more limited, and difficult to compare. So by asking for the two haulers’ histories of penalties, the city is opening an avenue it could not possibly explore without examining individual contracts to account for seemingly vast differences in the way fines are assessed and mitigated.
The city essentially said so in its rejection of all bids provided as a reason what it determined when it listed its failure “to account for the differing ways that governments provide performance incentives and penalties,” as it said in its Notice of Rejection. “Both Proposers failed to provide the City with the information it needs to evaluate the Proposals.”
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Jimbo99 says
Didn’t we go thru this before and Waste Pro was the lowest cost solution with the better (lowest) price increase of them all ? The uncertainty of this is getting absurd. FCOL, Waste Pro won the open bid process and it seems like Palm Coast is going out of their way to ensure residents pay even more for the same services. Garbage pick up is garbage pickup, it’s a filthy job, nothing glamorous about it. What am I missing here. Fining Waste Pro like they have, seems to be more of an abuse, a recovery of sorts that never gets back into the pockets of residents ? If you don’t like garbage service of Waste Pro, maybe you should look at how you put your garbage out by the street as nasty, unbagged garbage. That falls on the neighbor, not the waste collection company. The furniture & appliances. There are 2 ways that gets picked up. As a fee when you buy new appliances or scheduled with the waste contract. Either way it’s going to be paid for. Waste Pro obviously has the better environmental impact charge to consumers ? Is this about getting a garbage can provided by the waste collector ? A nasty garbage can is a nasty garbage can.
https://flaglerlive.com/169123/garbage-rates-rising/
https://flaglerlive.com/tag/waste-pro/
Astrid says
So, why can’t the city of Palm Coast establish it’s own Waste department and hire its own city workers? Waste Pro really needs to go.
Old Guy says
Forget all this nonsense and bring trash collection in house. Get the trucks with the lift arms and provide residents with the large bins. Recycle aluminum cans only.
Ron says
Exactly. Not only would it add more city/civil service jobs to the growing county, I feel it can more than deliver on better service than what is provided currently
LucyM says
And the contract was going to go to the higher bidder FCC? Something smells, and it’s not the garbage.
A.j says
We will see what happens. I didn’t like Waste Pro when they got the contract in 2007. The service got worse as time progressed. This year and last year they would not pick up my recycle and yard brush. They missed it for weeks, I called the company and things got a little better. I truly hope Waste Pro will get the boot.
A.j says
Regardless who get the contract,the customers will will get a higher garbage bill.
Dennis says
With all the costs rising on everything, we don’t need a 30% increase of garbage pick up. Stop the fines or reduce customer costs with the same amount the city collects in fines. Fines look like another stream of revenue for the city on the backs of taxpayers! Where does all the money collected with fines go?
The dude says
Why are there only two options in this area? Probably because it’s harder to grift when there’s actual competition.
John Yankovich says
We don’t need the city to have their own garbage collection. The city is incompetent at best and we don’t need that expanded!!
Celia M Pugliese says
Why is the city against of the majority of its residents that want to keep Waste Pro and force us to a higher priced service? Just sickening how we residents majority are being ignored! Mayor Alfin what is wrong here with administrators, Mayor and Council? Our utility bill for a house with only two elders residing in it, cost us over $100 a month and higher than our FPL electricity bill! And now you want all want to force a higher cost on us? Enough is enough and that is not what Mr. Alfin campaigned for.
shy guy says
Waste Pro is worthless. The WORSTE wee ever had.
Susan Maher says
Why can’t they offer us an alternative so that we can opt out of this garbage forced on us by our new city leaders? We have never had a problem with Waste Pro. The other company is just as bad as Waste Pro if not worse so Palm Coast management wants to switch our service AND raise our costs to over 60%!!! for what? WORSE service? Who in their right mind thinks this is a good idea? We voted you in to represent US. The bidding process smells like garbage….they want to award a contract for worse service to the highest bidder? What else are they doing behind our backs?
Land of no turn signals says says
If your employee was late and no show constantly would you give them a raise?
Frank Maher says
I’d rather give them 30% instead of 60% for WORSE service. Read about the company they tried to force down our throats. You may have a change of perspective.
Denali says
So where would the city then dump all the trash / yard waste and how would they handle the recycling? The local land fills are owned by the major waste haulers, and recycling partners don’t grow on trees. Yuk, Yuk . . .
palmcoaster says
Fill like a hand in the cookie jar here trying to take away the Waste Pro good service from us and for a higher cost contractor whos mouth pieces can be seeing trashing Waste Pro here and other social media?
palmcoaster says
Feel like not Fill like, goofy.
MITCH says
How many that are against Waste Pro have visited the facility in Bunnell and gone through a tour? Waste Pro has made many improvements that are environmental friendly. I took a tour on Friday and it was very impressive. They have worked hard to support Flagler County.
basile says
My garbage collection is great…trying to satisfy every one is impossible…Now it will be the first day of school all over again…”new and approved”…..sure sure sure…
Janet says
We need to keep Waste Pro. I agree with a previous comment. Whenever possible put trash out in bags and closed trash cans. Our hauler’s are hard working and are working in some thought difficult weather conditions and Covid conditions. In my opinion I think we need to be more respectful and thankful for the work they do. Amen!
Thank you Wasre Pro,
Jhurd