5 year contract concluded.City Eyes New Method
OCEAN CITY — Sea Isle City’s Pinelands Construction signed a five-year contract on August 25 to collect Ocean City’s trash and recyclables for $1.95 million annually.
The cost of pickups has risen dramatically over the past few years, and earlier this year the city’s current provider, Gold Medal, threatened the city and other Cape May County communities to stop pickups if they disagreed. A critical situation was reached at times. Renegotiate the contract. The gold medal was in his fifth year on his five-year contract, and the city eventually agreed to pay more to avoid disruption during the busy summer season.
Gold Medal also bid for the new contract, but its cost was considerably higher than that of the lowest bidder, Pinelands.
Business administrator George Savastano said the city had made multiple bids in two different forms. The annual cost was lower for the new option, but the initial investment would have been much higher, he explained.
The Pinelands contract is $975,000 a year for garbage collection and $975,000 for recyclables, with once a week most of the time and twice a week in the summer.
The city also solicited bids to purchase two 96-gallon containers (one for garbage and one recyclable) for each property.
Sabbastano said it would be easier to use containers to collect because the trucks are equipped with equipment to lift and dump the containers. That would cost him $950,000 a year for trash and the same for recyclables, saving him $50,000 a year or $250,000 over the life of the contract. However, to purchase a container for each facility would cost the city $1.7 million to $2 million for him.
He said the city will have to discuss switching at some point. Because it’s a cleaner operation, more recycling, and an attached lid keeps rain from weighing you down and increasing tipping fees.
Sabbastano said it was a good deal that would increase the city’s costs by about 30% over what the city was paying before amending its contract with the Gold Medal in late 2022.
He pointed out that the contract requires a performance guarantee that must be renewed annually.
“There won’t be any gold medal issues,” he said.
The deal was approved, along with the rest of the consent agenda, during a meeting of the Ocean City Council on Thursday evening.
David Nahan/ sentinel staff