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A regional board that oversees waste-management matters is moving ahead with plans to rebuild the Shoreway Recycling Center in San Carlos, which serves several local jurisdictions.
At its July 23 meeting, the South Bayside Waste Management Authority (SBWMA) approved issuing bonds that will allow it to begin construction of the facility. It also gave tentative approval to South Bay Recycling as the company to operate that facility, despite a recommendation by the San Mateo County civil grand jury for the board to revisit that decision.
The new facility would increase diversion rates by an estimated 30 percent, according to the waste-management agency.
The recycling center serves Atherton, Menlo Park, the West Bay Sanitary District, and some unincorporated portions of San Mateo County, as well as eight other Peninsula cities.
Eight of the SBWMA’s 12 jurisdictions will have to approve the choice of South Bay Recycling before the company is awarded the contract.
The waste-management agency expects the facility to cost about $42.3 million to build — much lower than a previous estimate, thanks to a 38 percent drop in estimated construction costs. That was enough to make Atherton reverse its opposition to the new facility, with the City Council voting unanimously at its June 15 meeting to authorize its delegate to approve the bond financing. The council had voted unanimously against funding the Shoreway facility in February, saying the price was too high and the bond market was too unstable.
Atherton Mayor Jerry Carlson called the latest estimates for constructing the Shoreway facility “much more palatable.”
The agency may issue a maximum of $56.5 million in bonds, to cover “contingencies.”
Grand jury report
The SBWMA is progressing with plans despite a report by the San Mateo County civil grand jury, issued July 10, recommending that the agency revisit its selection process for its recycling center operation and its garbage-collection contracts. That process failed to live up to the “integrity and transparency” promised by the agency, the grand jury argued.
The waste-management agency has hit back in a letter, saying the grand jury’s report is riddled with errors, and that many of its recommendations are unfounded, redundant, or not clearly worded.
“It was only after the release of the selection results that a few of the companies who were not selected began questioning the process and the results,” the agency said in the letter. It sent a 17-page attachment along with its response, correcting errors in the grand jury report.
Among the grand jury’s most notable allegations is the claim that the SBWMA overlooked two major bribery scandals involving Norcal Waste Systems, the company selected for the garbage-collection contract, involving San Bernardino County and San Jose. (Norcal recently changed its name to Recology.)
“The implication that Norcal’s experience in San Jose was overlooked is without merit,” the SBWMA wrote in its response to the grand jury.
It also denied overlooking the fact that a partner of South Bay Recycling had been cited for numerous violations, connected with its operation of a recycling facility in Los Angeles.
Responding to a set of recommendations by the grand jury on how to select contractors in the future, the SBWMA said it already abides by the key tenets of those recommendations.
— Andrea Gemmet contributed to this report.