News

By Tim O’Meilia

    Gulf Stream will try to renew its long-running contract for garbage pickup without seeking competitive bids.
    Town commissioners agreed with Town Manager William Thrasher’s recommendation to negotiate a new contract with Waste Management Inc., which has picked up residential garbage and recyclable materials in the town for more than 10 years.
    “Their service has been excellent,” said Commissioner Robert Ganger. “I believe they train their people well.’’
    Commissioners voted 3-0 to have the mayor and town manager try to make a new agreement. Commissioners Garrett Dering and Muriel Anderson were absent.
    The current five-year contract with Waste Management expires Sept. 30. The town pays $140,000 annually.
    Thrasher said Waste Management responds quickly to complaints.
“I recommend what I know works, what I’m familiar with,” he told commissioners.
    At least six other Palm Beach County cities, including Highland Beach and Delray Beach, have negotiated trash-hauling contracts recently without seeking competitive bids. Gulf Stream has had inquiries from other companies. After a turnover on its commission, however, Delray Beach is trying to void its deal and seek bids.
    “It is true we might get a better price, but what we can’t verify is the level of service,” Thrasher said.
    If Gulf Stream commissioners are unhappy with the terms of the new contract, they could seek bids later.
    The town has no policy on when to seek competitive bids and never has sought bids for garbage pickup, said Town Clerk Rita Taylor.
When the town discontinued its own trash collection decades ago, the town signed on with County Sanitation, the only major hauler in the area then. County Sanitation was later sold to another firm and then to Waste Management.
    In other business, commissioners:
    • Learned that bids for phase one of the $5.5 million utility burial project are due July 16 and the commission will be able to award a contract at its August meeting. Construction could start in September. The bid specifications include installation of 22 viper-headed street lights along A1A between Golfview Road and Pelican Lane and four 12-foot lantern-style street lights on interior streets.
    • Approved unanimously the division of a 4.7-acre parcel at 1410 N. Ocean Blvd. into three lots and the demolition of a garage and shed. Owner Ralph MacDonald agreed to a drainage plan and to maintenance of a 25-foot-wide landscape buffer with neighbors Billy and Shelly
Himmelrich.­