Councillors and staff at the Town of Gibsons are expressing disappointment over a missed opportunity to coordinate garbage collection contracts with the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD).
The SCRD and Town contracts are set to expire at the end of February 2017, and there had been talk of trying to move toward a joint tendering process that could also include Sechelt in the future.
On Dec. 15, the SCRD’s infrastructure services committee endorsed a one per cent increase in the solid waste collection fee to “fund anticipated increases to the collection contract and increased support service costs.”
Gibsons director Silas White, who was at the meeting, asked for an update on the efforts to coordinate contracts. SCRD chief administrative officer Janette Loveys said discussions were taking place.
“The intention is ‘yes.’ We see some progress, and opportunities for future years,” she said. “But not currently today.” Loveys also said the SCRD board and municipal councils can expect joint reports from the CAOs, including Sechelt’s, on closer cooperation and possible strategies for including organics in the new year.
When the issue came up at Gibsons council’s committee of the whole on Dec. 20, the Town’s director of finance, Ian Poole, said his department is now working on a separate RFP for garbage collection.
Gibsons CAO Emanuel Machado said the Town didn’t get much notice that the SCRD was going out in its own.
“We’re not certain where the breakdown happened,” he told the committee. “We were given less than a day’s notice that the tender was out… We were given a half-explanation that the billing could be complicated, but I find that to be a minor issue. We will do our best with our contracts with what we have.
“Certainly this doesn’t set a very good example of working regionally on a plan for the benefit of the region, when one area arbitrarily goes at it on its own. We certainly have expressed our concerns as far as this process has gone.”
White said he had been hopeful. “Looking at this year, where the contract [dates] actually lined up, it looked like there was some serious potential… From my perspective at least, it was quite a surprise.”
White also suggested that if Gibsons is going to have its own contract, it might be worth getting bids on organics too, but Mayor Wayne Rowe said that wouldn’t be practical.
“Let’s face it. It’s Dec. 20, our contract’s up on Feb. 28. This is not the time to try engineering a completely different model,” Rowe said.
The SCRD already has a separate tender out for an “organics diversion strategy” which does include Gibsons.
The SCRD is asking interested companies to bid on a two-year contract to run from March 1, 2017 to February 28, 2019. The Town of Gibsons RFP is being issued this week. It also proposes a two-year contract.
