Council wants more cost comparisons for trash collection

LACONIA — The City Council has told the city manager and public works director that it wants more information before considering whether to approve any change to automated trash collection. Some feel the city’s trash collection contract might need to be put out to bid again because the previous bid tilted the scales in favor of automated collection.

City Manager Scott Myers and Public Works Director Wes Anderson are recommending switching to a system using specially-designed large containers which would be mechanically lifted and dumped into collection trucks operated by the driver alone, thereby eliminating the need for a second person on the crew who now rides on the rear of the truck and manually empties the trash cans into the truck’s hopper.

In making the case for automated collection, Anderson has said that when the city put out the garbage contract out to bid last year it received only one bid, and that was for automated collection.

But at Monday’s council meeting one councilor and an apartment building owner said the bid packet stated the city was looking for proposals for automated collection, and not for continuing with the current manual method.

City Councilor Bob Hamel quoted from an advertisement published in The Daily Sun last Nov. 23, which stated that the city was seeking bids for automated collection only because it was shifting away from the manual method.

Mayor Andrew Hosmer said the cover of the bid packet was worded in such a way that it could have “influenced who responded and how they responded.”

The city received only one bid — from Casella Waste Systems, the current vendor — for $51,083 a month — a 27% increase. The current contract is due to expire at the end of September.

According to the city, it notified two other area trash haulers that the city was seeking bids. One never responded, and the other said it was not interested in bidding.

Anderson said previously that waste haulers are moving to the automated system and that manual collection is no longer viable.

But several councilors, including Hamel, said the city needs to lay out the costs for both methods as well as estimating what it would cost if the city itself took over the job of collecting the trash.

Councilor Henry Lipman said the city needs to be sensitive to the concerns of residents who might object to the change.

“With COVID and all the crap that we’ve had to deal with in the last two years people are sick and tired,” he said. “And if we’re going to have to make a change they want the full picture looked at, and not just how it affects the city budget, but how it affects their lives.”

“It’s a change, and change can be challenging,” Myers said. “There are a number of communities in New Hampshire doing this already, and I think Laconia can handle it.”

Harry Bean, whose family owns more than 80 apartments throughout the city, said the contract should be put out to bid again. He said if the bid proposal had explicitly stated it was seeking bids for manual collection the city might have received more than just one bid.

“If you get more bidders you might get lower prices,” he said. “Competition is the name of the game.”

Based on previous bids for trash collection, Myers estimated that manual collection would cost 20% to 30% more than automated collection.

Myers agreed to provide councilors with the numbers to allow the council to compare the costs between the different collection methods as well the cost if the city were to take over the collection.