Grand jury pokes into regional trash agency's contract selection

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Feb 25, 2009 | by Shaun Bishop

Eight members of a trash-collection agency in San Mateo County are set to start negotiating a new 10-year garbage contract with Norcal Waste Systems, even though a civil grand jury is investigating the agency's contract-selection processes.

The South Bayside Waste Management Authority, which manages trash service for 10 Peninsula cities, the county and a sanitary district, has spent the past year seeking and evaluating bids for two major trash contracts.

San Francisco-based Norcal won one of those contracts last August, when the authority's board selected it over three other competitors, including current contractor Allied Waste, to take over curbside pickup service beginning in 2011.

The second contract, for managing the authority's disposal and recycling facility in San Carlos, has not been awarded.

Each of the agency's members holds a separate contract with the trash pickup provider that may differ slightly, so each has to ratify Norcal's selection.

On Monday, the West Bay Sanitary District became the eighth agency to give Norcal its approval, joining East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Redwood City, San Carlos, San Mateo, Foster City and Burlingame.

Authority officials now believe they have enough support to start finalizing Norcal's contract, worth an estimated $46 million in annual revenue. Staff from the authority will open negotiations next month on behalf of its members, said authority Executive Director Kevin McCarthy.

But looming over the upcoming talks with Norcal is the grand jury investigation, which began late last year after then-Supervisor Jerry Hill questioned the transparency and fairness of those contract-selection processes and asked the grand jury to look into them.

Hill, now a state assemblyman, sent a letter to the grand jury foreman in November saying he was concerned that McCarthy's actions suggested the process was "biased and subject to manipulation."

Hill cited a letter McCarthy sent in August to elected officials containing "negative remarks" about Allied Waste. He also cited an e- mail from Louie Pellegrini, a partner in a company that was not selected, who said McCarthy angrily confronted him outside an authority meeting and threatened to end a business deal.

Since then, Hill and at least three other people have been called to testify before the grand jury, though the exact scope of the grand jury's work or when it will be complete has been kept secret. McCarthy said he regrets the incidents Hill mentioned but said they happened in August, well after the authority's selection committees had made their recommendations in June and July.

Still, at least one city -- Burlingame -- plans to wait until after the grand jury report is released to make a decision on the Norcal contract.

The grand jury is a fact-finding body and has little power to enforce any recommendations it makes, but Hill said it is important for the 90,000 ratepayers in the authority's jurisdiction to have confidence in the authority's picks.

Virginia Chang Kiraly, the forewoman for the grand jury, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Reach Shaun Bishop at sbishop@dailynewsgroup.com.