Bidding Urged on Trash Contract

Saying that people are paying too much for trash service, several residents and local trash company representatives called on the city to put its exclusive five-year garbage hauling contract out to bid.

The city, which now permits only Great Western Reclamation to haul commercial and residential garbage, is currently renegotiating its contract. At the City Council meeting on Tuesday council members heard pleas for greater competition for that contract.

Madelene Arakelian, who owns an Irvine trash collection company, called the city’s contract “ludicrous” and said that Great Western charges as much as two to three times what other companies charge for some services.

The residential monthly rate is $11.86 and the commercial rate is $110. No official of Great Western responded at the meeting.

“This city needs to bring business back to it. Trash is part of doing business,” she said. She added that the high cost of trash service may deter companies from moving into Santa Ana.

Starboard Street resident Pat Mill said she agreed and demanded that the council “look out for the residents and put this out to bid.”

Mill also suggested that city officials may have intentionally edited the rebroadcast of the previous council meeting to avoid further publicizing trash service complaints. The meeting was rebroadcast minus several minutes of audio, including comments made by one woman who urged the council to open the contract to competition.

“It looks very suspicious,” Mill said.

However, Dave Barford, general manager at Comcast Cablevision, said Wednesday that the audio failure was due to a technical glitch that was quickly fixed.