County Commissioners have set the date of Oct. 20 for the first public hearing on the new contract and what negotiations may have developed up to that time.

The idea of door-to-door pickup service was discussed, and Yamamoto said from studies Recology has done, such a service would not really work in Lincoln County.

Paul Mathews asked the question, was Recology going to be able to fulfill the promise it made to Lincoln County in 2004, when they took over the garbage collection and landfill service, to bring in vast amounts of solid waste from Southern California to the Crestline landfill. Yamamoto gave a round about answer, that basically said “No.”

Hooge said there is a lot that needs to be overhauled, and once a new contract is developed, the County will still have to go out to bid, and Recology will have to make a bid like anyone else who might be interested. By Dave Maxwell
A three-month extension on the current contract with Recology has been agreed to by a subcommittee of the Lincoln County Commissioners.

The present contract with Recology, the solid waste haulers for the County, expires in October. Committee member Paul Mathews said, with the expiration of this contract, a new one, not an amendment to the old, can be worked out and hoped “we can get a clean slate.

Paul Yamamoto, Vice President and Group General Manager of Landfill Operations, and Tom Norris, a financial manager, both of the Recology office in Sacramento were at a subcommittee workshop meeting in Pioche Sept. 15.

This will hold the status quo, Yamamoto said, and give the Recology and District Attorney Dan Hooge time to come up with a new contract that will include the specific things the County is most concerned about. The new contract would be expected to go into effect the first of the year.

One specific of particular interest will be that Recology will now be required to do customer billing and collections themselves, or outsource the work.

So, an entirely new contract may need to be worked out, rather than a revamping of the present one.

The office of the County Treasurer has been doing the billing work and Treasurer Shawn Frehner has made it known that her office will not do the billing anymore after Dec. 31, 2014.

She has told County Commissioners at other times, her two-person office just does not have the time to continue to do the billing and collections work, and she has also objected to the County “doing the job of a for profit company.

Another matter to be worked out will be Recology’s requirement of a 6-percent annual increase in customer rates.

Yamamoto said he thinks all of these matters are doable, and was as interested as the committee was in “providing stable garbage collection service for Lincoln County, and I think there is a path forward.”

Although he would have preferred a longer extension period, Frehner reminded him the County will not do the billing and collections anymore after this year