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YORKTOWN, N.Y. Competition Carting will be Yorktown's new garbage collector following a unanimous vote Tuesday night by the Yorktown Town Board. The contract goes into place on Jan. 1 and will be $2.49 million annually for a period of two years.
The vote was intensely debated by members of the town board and drew criticism from members of C.R.P. Sanitation, Yorktown's previous garbage collector and the second lowest bidder for the contract at $3 million.
While switching garbage pickup companies next year will save Yorktown nearly $500,000, some wondered whether those savings would outweigh a loss of experience.
Yorktown changed language in its bid specifications earlier this year that gave startup companies, like Competition Carting, a chance to win its residential garbage pickup contract. Yorktown previously required 10 years of experience from its garbage crews, but the new bid had no requirement on experience.
"Everything that we do, when we go out to bid on anything, we have to draw up specs that draw in the most competition to hopefully get the lowest price," Supervisor Michael Grace said Tuesday night. "And that's what our duty is to our taxpayers."
Competiton Carting Owner Brian Amico said he will be able to do the job for cheaper because he has less overhead than C.R.P., which has more than 570 employees. Amico said his company currently has four employees.
A C.R.P. employee told The Daily Voice that his company uses 10 trucks and 19 employees to pick up trash from nearly 10,000 residential areas in Yorktown.
Amico is proposing to do the job with eight trucks and and 12 employees. He said he does not have the money to purchase the trucks and hire the employees now, but will be able to after being awarded the bid.
"I'm going to buy whatever equipment's necessary to do the job," Amico said. "I have a vested interest in this town. I've lived here my whole life. If I miss a stop that's my friend I'm missing."
Town Board member Nick Bianco said he was skeptical that Competition Carting could get the job done, but said there were legal ramifications to voting against the lowest bidder that met all the required specifications.
"I hope that he succeeds. I really do. Because if he doesn't, we got a problem," Bianco said. "We made this problem ourselves by putting in this bid document 'no experience.' And I voted for it, I made a mistake and I will admit that was a mistake."
C.R.P. had been Yorktowns residential garbage collector for seven years. The town's initial six-year contract with the company expired Dec. 31, 2011, and it was brought back on a one-year contract in 2012.
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