Moorpark Council Favors Local Trash Haulers Over Texas-Based Firm : Government: City agrees to continue exclusive talks with two Simi companies.

Bowing to pressure from two local trash haulers, the Moorpark City Council has decided to continue its exclusive negotiations with the companies rather than open the process to a national corporation that has promised lower prices.

Browning Ferris Industries, the nation’s second-largest trash hauler, had requested that the city allow it to bid on the contracts that expire in July.

Those contracts have been held for the past five years by two Simi Valley firms--G.I. Rubbish and the Anderson Disposal Co.--and are set for renewal pending closed-door negotiations between the company’s officials and members of a City Council committee.

About a month ago, BFI officials came to a Moorpark City Council meeting asking for a chance to bid on those contracts.

The Texas-based firm could save the city 30% to 40% on what its 7,000 residential customers now pay for trash hauling, said Hardy Strozier, a BFI consultant. Over five years, Strozier said, the savings could amount to more than $2 million.

But at a City Council meeting Wednesday night, officials from G.I. Rubbish and Anderson Disposal disputed those claims. And several council members were also skeptical, stating that BFI based its estimates on unfair comparisons to cities with different waste-disposal services.

After more than a dozen supporters of the two local companies came forward at Wednesday’s meeting, the council voted unanimously to continue its closed-door negotiations with G.I. Rubbish and Anderson Disposal.

“We owe our allegiance to a locally owned company with local employees,” said Councilman John Wozniak, who voted to continue the negotiations with the two companies. “If we cannot get the best deal in the negotiations, then perhaps we go out and get outside bids.”

Wozniak and the other council members said the nature of the negotiations, which required the two companies to open their books to city officials, allowed the city to guarantee better service at a reasonable price.

Mayor Paul Lawrason, who negotiates contracts for an aerospace company, called the contract negotiations “good business” for Moorpark.

“And with the pressure now on these haulers,” he added, “it will be incumbent upon them to give us the best deal possible at the level of service that we’ve come to expect.”

Along with employees from the two companies, G.I. Rubbish Chief Executive Officer Mike Smith and Anderson Disposal Vice President Chuck Anderson addressed the council. In the audience was G.I. Rubbish founder and Chairman Manuel Asadurian Sr., who also owns a sprawling ranch in the city.

“We believe that local government should give local businesses every chance to succeed,” Anderson said.

And pointing out that top managers of the two companies were willing to come to Wednesday’s meeting and discuss the issue with the council, he added, “Would the president and the vice president of BFI do the same?”

Although company officials from G.I. Rubbish and Anderson Disposal were calling the vote a victory, officials from BFI said the council had not yet shut the door on them.

“I think what they are saying is that they are satisfied with their local haulers, but that they are also still open to listening to outside offers,” Strozier said Thursday.

Still, BFI officials were disappointed with the decision, saying that the city was hurting itself by not opening up the process.

They also said they were unfairly being characterized as a foreign invader using Moorpark as a “gateway” in its effort to obtain residential trash contracts in Ventura County.

“That’s a misnomer,” Strozier said. “We are in the private marketplace like every other hauler, and given the opportunity, we will compete for more business. We’re just asking for a chance.”