Representatives from Oak Park’s waste hauler met with the village board for a performance review earlier this month, as village leaders said Oak Park will likely pursue a “competitive bid process” before the contract expires next year.
Before any bidding process begins the Oak Park board and village staff will discuss how leaf collection and composting will be addressed in any request for proposals on the garbage, recycling, leaf collection and composting project.
The board heard from Lakeshore Recycling Systems’ Area Vice President George Strom during the meeting, as the Maywood-based waste hauler is “very interested” in renewing its contract with Oak Park.
“I’m here tonight to reflect on what we’ve done, and what we can do better,“ Strom said. “A lot of times people look at our industry as creatures of habit, but we should always be trying to improve. Whether its improving engagement with the residents, whether its improving the units we’re using, whether it’s signage on our carts, we should always be looking to improve.”
When the village awarded the hauling contract to LRS in 2022, LRS was the only company to bid for the contract besides Waste Management, who’d held Oak Park’s garbage hauling contract for well over 20 years by that point. At the time, Waste Management was seeking a rate increase for Oak Park customers while LRS was not looking to increase rates.
Village trustees said they hope the village can receive bids from a larger number of contractors as the current deal expires. Trustee Brian Straw said that one of the benefits of switching Oak Park’s leaf collection model to require leaf bagging in 2024 was that it would potentially put smaller waste hauling companies in a position to bid for Oak Park’s business.
“We should go through a competitive bid process,” said Straw. “My understanding is that the bid process we had fewer bids than we otherwise would’ve had because of our leaf program, as a lot of smaller waste haulers weren’t able to accommodate that program. I want us to go to market and see what the options are out there, because that was one of the benefits we talked about with our constituents as a benefit of moving to a bagging program.”
Trustee Jim Taglia was on the board that voted to award LRS the contract, but said that resident complaints about the hauler have made him reconsider that vote.
“I get a lot of complaints,” Taglia said. “At the time I thought I made a good decision, but now I’m wondering if I did.”
Taglia also said he hopes that as the village evaluates its waste hauling contract that it considers going back to its previous model of fall leaf collection, where waste haulers swept up leaves that had been raked into the street.
The village board is expected to vote formally on a strategy for its waste hauling contract in March, according to village documents. After that vote, village staff will likely begin work on a request for waste hauling proposals.
