It has been one year since 10,000 Yorktown homeowners had to go through a summer of garbage hell after the Town Board awarded a garbage contract to a company that couldn’t handle the job.
Since fixing their error, over the past 9 months, CRP Sanitation has been collecting residents garbage and has done a good job. One resident on Yorktown Garbage Talk on Facebook “last year at this time we were struggling with garbage and recycling not getting picked up. We now have consistent pickups, I appreciate CRP.”
CRP was appointed by the Town to an emergency contact, at a cost of $4.4 Million, that ends at the end of August. Over this summer, the Town went out to bid on a new Garbage contract, for five years.
CRP came in at $3.95 Million. Mahopac scrap came in at $3.75 Million, and AAA Carting came in with the low bid of $3.45 Million. Instead of saving the taxpayers $500,000 per year, for a five year contract, the Town decided to go out to bid a second time. Two of the same bids came in; CRP and AAA at the same costs.
So the Town Board has any easy decision to make, right? According to NYS law, they are required to award the bid to AAA, who is the “lowest, responsible bidder.” But for some reason, it appears that the Town Board is dragging their feet to do so.
How come? The whispers around Town Hall is that most of the five republicans on the town board are still sore at AAA for suing the town after the town removed their contact to pick up garbage, and award the contract to Competitive Carting, who could not fulfill their part of the contact. One thousand Yorktown residents joined Yorktown Trash Talk and complained about their garbage not being picked up.
AAA sued because in their view and the view of a thousand Yorktown residents, the Town Board, in awarding the contract to Competitive, did not award it to the “lowest, responsible bidder.”
If the Town Board wants to blame someone for AAA Carting suing the Town, they should blame themselves for making the ill advised decision to award the contact to Competitive. Don’t blame AAA for your mistake.
AAA Carting had the garbage contract with Yorktown for five years, and has dozens of other contracts in Westchester and beyond.
Plus, they came in with the lowest bid. If the Town Board wants to save taxpayers a few bucks, and follow the law, they should award the contract to AAA at their next meeting this month.
The Town Board, under then Supervisor Matt Slater, claimed the reason they gave the contact to Competitive was to save taxpayer dollars. Now they have the same choice to make with AAA.
Joining the Town Board shortly will be democrat Susan Siegel, who won the special election for town board. Siegel is waiting for the Board of Elections to certify her victory, and then she will be seated and attend town board meetings.
Hopefully, this nonsense over garbage will be ending soon. No other community in Westchester county has had this type of problem, and incompetent government, in our view.
Most homeowners in Yorktown are paying $20,000 and up in property taxes. They want their garbage and recycling removed in a timely and efficient manner.
AAA can provide that service, at the lowest price. End of story.
