Garbage Contracts No Longer Automatic : * New Trend of Cities Negotiating Better Deals a Sign of Prudent Fiscal Management

Many cities in Orange County previously have taken trash hauling contracts for granted. But now some are taking a second look at this accepted practice. It’s a welcome trend.

Santa Ana is attempting to renegotiate better terms with its hauler, and competitive bidding has become an election issue in that city. Mission Viejo is looking at different haulers. Two recently incorporated cities, Laguna Hills and Lake Forest, are guarding their option to end current contracts inherited from the Board of Supervisors.

Some cities, of course, are content. Laguna Beach recently extended its contract for a decade with little discussion. Irvine’s waste coordinator says the city isn’t going out to bid because it doesn’t think it could do better.

Still, the new inclination to ask questions--to negotiate more favorable terms and bid competitively--has to be a sign of prudent fiscal management in tight finances.

For years, as one former mayor of Santa Ana points out, contracts in that city have gone reliably to the same firm. This was so even though the city routinely bid for just about everything else. The haulers provided dependable service and nobody had to bother with the intricacies of garbage contracts.

But there was another reason for the lack of bidding. Generous campaign contributions have made for cozy relations between public officials and trash executives. The cultivation of friendships has discouraged a competitive atmosphere.

It’s a familiar story in local government. Reliance from special interests for campaign contributions inevitably makes it more difficult for public officials to be objective. This is so despite their most vigorous assertions about staying at arms’ length from the donors. Terry Trumball, the former chairman of the California Waste Management Board, says accurately, “Local government recycling (and trash collection) is excessively dominated by campaign donations.”

Indeed, in Santa Ana, campaign finance reports from Waste Management Inc., the corporate parent of the company that collects city garbage, have totaled about $59,500 to council candidates since 1986. Most of that money went to incumbents.

Even if the threat of competition and recession prompts cities to negotiate more favorable terms with longtime haulers, well and good. And candidates would do well to stay away from campaign contributions while those lucrative long-term contracts are being negotiated.