Trash and recycling pickups are set to end Tuesday in Calumet City after the City Council voted Thursday to reject a contract extension for its waste hauler.
City officials are scrambling to approve a new deal after apparently dropping the ball on a bidding process. The contract expires at the end of January. Refuse could begin piling up in Calumet City streets and alleys beginning Wednesday unless an agreement is approved.
“We don’t want chaos in our city,” Mayor Thaddeus Jones said.
Four aldermen, a majority of the seven-member council, balked about increased costs and voted against extending a pact with Republic Services. A company representative said rate hikes were needed due to increased costs for fuel, labor and supplies.
“There have been significant cost increases over the past 12 months,” said Jocelyn Kruis, general manager of a regional Republic Services facility in Crestwood.
Republic ranks among the nation’s largest residential and commercial waste hauling companies with $11 billion in revenues and 39,000 employees in the United States. Republic operates 198 landfills and 71 recycling centers.
Republic has collected trash and recycling materials in Calumet City for the past 10 years.
“We would like to continue,” Kruis said.
The proposed contract would raise costs 17% the first year and 5% each of the next three years, 1st Ward Ald. Michael Navarrete said. The city’s total costs would increase to about $12 million over four years from about $8 million over the most recent four-year deal, he said.
“It was sticker shock,” Navarrete said. “That’s a 50% increase overall.”
Republic was the only company that submitted a bid when Calumet City recently invited vendors to compete for the city’s business, a process known as seeking requests for proposals, or RFPs.
“There was not a competitive response,” said city attorney Carissa Townsend of Chicago-based Ancel Glink, Calumet City’s legal counsel.
The city should have started the process of seeking competitive bids sooner, Navarrete said.
“We did an RFP instead of negotiating” a contract extension with Republic, Navarrete said. “We kind of rushed the situation. We gave 30 days for the competitive bid process. We learned that was not enough time for a city our size.”
Calumet City has more than 35,000 residents and covers more than 7 square miles between Chicago’s southeastern border and Interstate 80, and the Bishop Ford expressway and the Indiana border
Republic offered the city two options, officials said. One was a four-year deal and the other an extension for six and a half years. When asked which offer was preferred, the council unanimously voted in favor of the four-year deal, Jones said.
But when the time came to approve the pact, only three council members voted in favor of the deal: DeJuan Gardner, Anthony Smith and Ramonde Williams. Navarrete, James Patton, DeAndre Tillman and Monet Wilson voted against the contract.
Calumet City last approved a four-year agreement with Republic in 2016, he said. The city agreed to one-year extensions in 2020 and 2021. That was during the start of the pandemic and the end of an 18-year tenure by Mayor Michelle Markiewicz Qualkinbush. Jones won election and took office in 2021.
“I think it was a great contract in 2016,” Navarrete said. “It seemed like we should have given them a four-year extension in 2020.”
Since the pandemic began three years ago and Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago, costs throughout the supply chain have spiked as inflation jumped to double digits. Companies have either had to suffer profit losses by absorbing the increased expenses or pass along the higher costs to consumers.
The most recent one-year extension stipulated that city and company representatives would meet by July 1 to negotiate a new contract, Kruis said.
“That didn’t happen,” she said.
Republic has divided Calumet City into five areas and picks up trash and recycling from homes and businesses on all five weekdays, according to a map and information posted on the city’s website.
Before the council voted, Navarrete asked if Republic would negotiate a lower cost increase.
“Is there any room for us to get back to the table?” he asked.
“No,” Kruis replied. “We did everything that we were asked to do.”
The company has sustained significant cost increases for diesel fuel, hydraulic oil, maintenance and equipment, she said.
“Parts and supplies are hard to come by,” Kruis said, calling this bid its best and final offer.
“When an RFP comes out we don’t know there isn’t going to be competition,” she said.
There were some cost savings offered in the longer, six and a half year deal that the council rejected, she said.
Before the vote, Jones warned council members of the consequences of rejecting the offer.
“The end result is if the City Council doesn’t pass this, garbage will not be picked up on Feb. 1,” the mayor said.
Following the vote, the council met in closed session for more than 90 minutes in the mayor’s office to discuss matters involving potential litigation. Members emerged and took action.
Aldermen who made the motion and second on the waste disposal agreement withdrew their motion and second. The council then unanimously approved a measure to allow the four council members who voted against the pact to reconsider their votes “on Jan. 31 or a later date,” according to Jones.
The Illinois Open Meetings Act requires government bodies to post notice at least 48 hours in advance of public meetings. The expectation is Calumet City will call a special council meeting as soon as it is able so the council can vote again on the proposed agreement with Republic.
No notice of a special meeting was posted on the city’s website as of midday Friday.
Jones is also a state representative. Another state representative, Anthony DeLuca of Chicago Heights, works for Republic in residential, commercial and industrial sales. DeLuca’s family sold its waste hauling business to Republic in 2012 and he stayed on as an employee, DeLuca said.
Ted Slowik is a columnist for the Daily Southtown.