County to Collect Trash Hauling Bids
The three companies currently hauling trash in the unincorporated areas of Santa Barbara County will be the only ones allowed to bid on new contracts, as the Board of Supervisors decided on 4/6 to favor “quasi-free market” competition over favoritism for one company, or a free-for-all bidding process. County staff is now determining what should be in the new contracts, which were last developed in 1997 and will now run until 2019, and will come back to the board with specifics in late summer. Once the contracts and evaluation criteria are approved, MarBorg and Allied Waste (which currently split the South Coast zones), and Waste Management (which has a lock on the North County zone) will be able to bid on them. If that process does not work, then the backup will be open competition for all haulers.
