Who said this contract was rigged?
After two plus hours of discussion the city council, by a split vote of 3-2, decided to commence negotiations with Waste Management on our new waste removal contract.
Mayor Pro-Tem Leckness made the Motion, seconded by Mayor Kelley to have our consultant, Joe Sloan, begin negotiations and return with a report for the July 5th meeting. Members Ledesma and Schlicht voting no. Frank Ury joined with the prevailing side.
One area that I do agree with Member Ledesma is setting only 20 percent weight to the cost proposals. He said he disagreed with the pro-forma and felt that cost should be valued at 50 to 60 percent.
At one point JP made a Motion to throw out CR&R even after they were scored second by Sloan-Vazquez who stated having over 25 years experience in this field. He was leaning to Athens and Waste Management. Cathy said the scoring process is corrupt if you throw out Sloan recommendation number two. John Paul said the CR&R bid was non competitive. Who is he to tell any vendor what profit margin they wish to include in their proposals?
So we begin negotiations with the highest bidder whose pricing, over the life of the contract, could approach $17 more than the lowest qualified vendor. And we call ourselves fiscal conservatives.
In leaving the building CR&R VP Dean Ruffridge told me that “based on our experience at city council meetings, Mission Viejo is not a good match for CR&R.”
The outcome is not a surprise, and getting there was more than half the fun.
With Ury’s buddy John Lewis Pimping for Athens, and JP’s Best Man Pimping for Athens they immediately attacked the low cost bidder. In other words–to hell with the Mission Viejo rate payers; I want to take care of myself and my friends. Ury said–“It does not compute”–you just have to understand what he meant. And now we all do.!!
The council once again employed Joe Sloan to “negotiate” with his chooses trash hauler. What a joke—-the people of Mission Viejo have been taken again. All we need is some art work to go along with this joke.
I’m confused Jimmy – you’re ripping Frank Ury because he went with Waste Management? After all the outcry of him meeting with Athens outside of City Hall and his purported connections to Athens that you mention in your post. So he DIDN’T vote for Athens and you’re still mad at him? Rational thinker all the way (particularly in light of your worthless comment yesterday about Trish Kelley). You’re a tribute to Mission Viejo residents. Keep up the good work!
And if CR&R itself admits that it is not a good fit for Mission Viejo, then why would anyone be mad for going with the only one of the top two recommendations left?
If one cannot be dazzled with brilliance (CR&R’s low qualified bid) and efficiency, baffle them with bullshit. It looks like the majority were persuaded by the latter rather than be conservative with the taxpayers money for the next 10 years. When is the majority ever going to understand that we are in dire financial times. I am fed up with this city counsel majority. Why would we not overwhelmingly pass Proposition D than to leave the decisions of land zoning up to this city counsel majority. Vote Yes on proposition D.
CR&R is not a good fit for Mission Viejo because the council majority does not understand what integrity means.
Newbi:
Glad your confused !!
Obviously you have no ability to see behind the curtain. Of course we have all seen your myopic views before–keep it up. Your views will continue to be summarily dismissed.
Folks. Some of you sadly don’t get it. The contract fix was in from the start. Pay close attention to a few key points.
1. Joe Sloan recommended the highest bidder, Waste Management, in his presentation
2. City manager Wilberg, in responding to an inquiry from Dave Leckness at the last meeting(where Dave asked Dennis whom he would recommend) said we hired an experienced consultant to make a recommendation. Paraphrased. Is this called giving a nod?
3. Waste Management stated that they had room to move in their pricing.
Note: If you are at risk of losing a major client for 10 years, to the tune of close to $100 million dollars, you sharpen your pencil from day one and not leave wiggle room margins when you may never get another shot at the target.
4. At the end of the debate Frank Ury played us in saying that W/M had better give us a good cost reduction in the follow-up negotiations. Sure. Listen to the vendor audio’s and watch our city council videos. This is his method of damage control/cover for Trish and Dave who are up for reelection in Nov.
5. When all is said and done the council majority will boast that they just negotiated with W/M and “saved taxpayers over one million dollars” for their next election flyers.
The only problem is that the original W/M proposal is close to $17 million higher than the qualified lowest bidder with two other qualified vendors not far behind.
6. W/M will negotiate to use their existing fleet of trucks along with a cost reduction. The only problem is that without the pending renewal on the table we would have continued overpayments of $one million dollars every three years in our residential trash removal.
What major breakthru did they achieve that enables W/M to, out of the blue, cut their profit margins today? With an annual COLA there costs have surely increased, not decreased, over time. That is one question that was never raised.
As to CR&R’s comments to me let me simply say read between the lines.
The same is true for one of our city consultants. Why bother bidding when the same firm wins 99 percent of the time.
Larry, glad to see you’re not biased in any way and that you’re an objective reporter. I find it odd that Ury is getting blamed for basically voting the same way Ladesma did and for basically the same reasons. Leckness’s argument made sense. The low number of trucks CR&R wanted to run with never added up. Plus have you seen the bins they give you? They are cheap and flimsy.
I thought the most interesting bid was from Anthens, but south county would almost be impossible since they aren’t in OC at all. They should shoot for some north county cities and then move down. Also running a non-union out of a union yard just wouldn’t work for long.
I distrust politicians as much as the next person, but this time the naysayers are looking foolish.
LBM.
in the case of the trash contract I took on two roles. One to cover what was published and a second as a resident who like everyone else in this city pays for solid waste removal. As such I do have a dog in the hunt as do many of my neighbors and friends who have thanked me for spending the time to look out for their interests rather than special interests.
I do not recall any positive or negative remarks when I published my first post with the Sloan recommendation for Waste Management. They were happy with that story. That is what some local reporters would do. My second story was after I peeled back the onion and exposed the other three vendor bids that were each dramatically lower in cost than Waste Management.
That’s the difference between some reporters who get their story off a police blotter or a MV Newsletter and someone who can devote the time to engage in investigative work.
If I am not mistaken you recently questioned my source of facts.
Cathy Schlicht did point out why Athens could not provide continuity of service due to the need for a local yard and getting permits for same.
Have you listened to the tape of Frank Ury’s unofficial field trip to Athens with Joe Sloan in violation of a unanimous council directive? As of now Karen Hamman is not aware of that trip nor does she have the alleged tape that I reported on with one of my earlier stories.
This story is far from over. Stay tuned.
PS: They are having a reunion in New Jersey and called for your email or phone number. Please tell them that we are not colleagues. I have better things to do than monitor your calls. Thank you!
Fellow Bloggers,
RE the rubbish hauling deal in MV, there is moral corruption and there is innocent corruption that results from stupidity and/or lack of analysis or peer pressure. CR&R hauls all the cities around us. Waste Management hauls several locations around us including Ladera Ranch, Lake Forest and Irvine. Would it take that much effort to just go check things out? I don’t believe this was done. Yet, MV paid over $100K to a couple guys to tell the Council the time on the Council wall clock. I sincerely believe it was a gloriously ochestrated “fix” and the Council hid behind the consultant to deflect criticism.
Can we simply recognize that rubbish hauling is the pursuit of a monopoly cash flow guaranteed because there is the need for order on the streets of our community. Can we pause and recognize only individuals or corporations with access to major capital can do this type of work. We are all down in the detail in this blogging.
The council should have selected the low bid as a matter of business integrity. If they wanted to play hardball, they should be negoitating with both firms to develop the desired schedule of services and an associated price. Instead, there is tit and tat re how many trucks. Great stuff. Then they allow the high bidder to lower their offer to cover up their rip off for the last number of years. This is all done in public and no one seems to notice.
Now step back and look at the Mission Viejo Council circus over the last few weeks and see the stupidity fueled corruption or just the naked corruption. You be the judge.
I myself am done talking about this. Thanks for reading.
Mission Viejo Truth Teller.
MV Truth Teller.
I have tried to cover this story like a blanket. As such it does result in more info than the average reader wants to digest.
For those who have read my prior reports do you recall the one in which I mention Frank Ury being taken to Athens by the consultant with full knowledge that this field trip broke the 5-0 council restriction on all meetings? Joe Sloan either lied or is concealing the tape recording of that off-site meeting. Said interface with vendors was to occur inside city hall and be tape recorded.
How about the fact that last night, and again earlier today, the City Clerk responded to my public record email/verbal requests to see or obtain a copy of the meeting only to be advised that “I am not aware of one being recorded due to the site visit)” and her latest response where she states: “The city does not have any records(an audio file) to your request).”
My first e-mail request was also sent to our city attorney and city manager. Notice that no one commented on the illegal field trip. You will not find that in the OC Register account.
Wow, that’s an interesting finding about Ury. Didn’t know he went on a illegal meeting. the same consultant recommended CRR for Orange. I wonder if they didn’t give him all his money for helping them get the City of Orange so he burned them on this MV deal. And there is absolutely no reason to pay this guy another 15,000 when he already got paid 100 grand to do pretty much nothing. MV voters need to really think about the next local election. The problem is Larry, who else is going to run against them? I haven’t heard of anyone throwing their hat into the ring.
Paulie.
As to the tape recording I will see what remedies are available before saying anything further on the blog.
How much audio was were missing from the Nixon tape machine, 18.5 minutes?
In this example it’s probably double that time and then some.
I could spread a rumor that you are a candidate.
There are a few names being bantered around. One name that will not be on the list is mine.
I challenge Frank Ury to publicly address his actions of flaunting the council’s directive on meeting with the identified vendors. Mr Ury should address this in an open forum—not just a hauty remark from the podium where he can not be questioned by the public.
All meetings after the moratorium were directed to be at city hall and recorded. Ury traveled after this decree to Athens with Joe Sloan. The meeting with Athens was not recorded, the travel time in the car to Athens with Joe Sloan was not recorded.
Both Frank Ury and Joe Sloan knew these rules!!!!
Both Frank Ury and Joe Sloan should be removed from further involvement in this contract.
His actions are just another look into his “better than though” attitude.