King council talks trash; councillor wonders about 'made in King' solution

Yorkregion.com
Jan. 5, 2016
By Tim Kelly

Councillors talked trash as plans take shape for York Region’s six smallest municipalities to carve out a new waste disposal contract.

The so-called N6, made up of the northern six York Region municipalities, including King Township, often negotiate joint contracts to get better pricing based on economies of scale.
But King City Councillor Cleve Mortelliti, citing problems several years ago with Green For Life’s waste disposal service, wondered at a recent council meeting last month if a “made-in-King solution” would be better than an N6 option.

“There were a couple of years there where it was just nothing but a headache,” said Mortelliti.

“Is there an option where we can go it alone ... and RFP (request for proposal) it out just for King?”

Mike Cole, the point man for township staff with N6 on the issue, admitted problems existed with “transfer of ownership” during the life of the existing contract, but said, “that’s currently being discussed in the RFP so that we don’t have those issues again.

“We can look at a made-in-King RFP ... I’m not sure that would serve King as well financially,” said Cole.

Mayor Steve Pellegrini said a made-in-King waste solution is not the best way to go.

“That’s very contrary to what we’re doing with the N6. Last one (waste contract), we saved a million bucks because we did it as the N6. We can do a made-in-King solution, but it’s going to cost a made-in-King price.

“Whole reason we’re doing N6 initiatives is to reap those benefits of a much larger contract and economies of scale. I understand we had some not nice issues - we all had the (complaint) calls.

We have to be proactive in the next contract to make sure those issues don’t occur instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater here,” said Pellegrini.

Chief administrative officer Susan Plamondon said King could decide on an improved level of service within a proposed N6 contract. It would just cost residents here more.

Council approved a motion to have township staff continue to work with the N6 on a waste disposal request for proposal.