Speaker 1: 60 Recommendation to accept an informational report on establishing integrated waste collection ceiling rates and service fees for Alameda County Industries for rate period 14th July 2015 to June 2016.
Speaker 7: Madam Mayor, Members of the City Council, I am Liam Garland from the Public Works Department and we are about to move pretty quickly through an informational report. In less than 15 minutes we'll actually have five presenters. So here we go. Oh, we're.
Speaker 0: Sorry to interrupt. And we have nine speakers at this point.
Speaker 7: Yes. Oh, we will be presenting an informational report on adjusting garbage rates as we do annually with one unique feature this year, which is the fact that the sorters at Alameda County Industries Facility in San Leandro are receiving a bargain for heightened salaries and wages and benefits. And what we're going to do is I'm going to provide a quick overview of the franchise, some of its successes and failures. I'll turn to Marva Sheehan from H.f. and our consultant who works with us closely on our franchise to walk through the options in front of the counsel for responding to those labor increases. Then we're going to hear directly from two representatives of Alameda County Industries and then a representative from the International. I'm going to Longshore and Warehouse Union, the ILWU WTU. That's the plan. Let me just emphasize that this is an informational item. We'll be back in two weeks to actually take action for setting rates for the subsequent year, and that's beginning July 1st, 2015. So I'll now provide the the overview of the franchise and some of its successes and challenges. And here you see are the basic infrastructure of picking up trash and recyclables and compost, lots of trucks. Those trucks are powered by compressed natural gas. Those trucks are making 2.9 million pickups per year in Alameda. This is a lot of work happening. And guess what? That work is having a great benefit. If you look at our diversion rate, we're at 76%. That's one of the highest diversion rates in Alameda County. So that that's a testament to a lot of hard work of Alameda residents, businesses, Alameda County Industries, community groups here like Community CASA, Community Action for Sustainable Alameda, I believe. And of course, city staff as well. So there's a lot to praise about that work. Here's one challenge. We have something called a negative balancing account on this franchise. Essentially, it's a negative million dollar balance account. And I just want to quickly describe where that comes from. If you take a look at this chart, the gap between the blue and that red line describes most of the balancing account. To start to explain that the blue line is where prior councils set rates. The red line is where is the actual revenue that was recovered from those rates. So going into detail on the blue line, you see that the rates there have been some significant rate increases over the past eight years or so, above 10% rate increase in 2007 and almost 10% increase in 2009 and then a 10% increase in 2013. Our lowest rate adjustment was actually last year, 2.62%. And if we focused for a moment just on 2011, you'll see that we, the city council, set an increase of 5%, yet actual revenue declined that year. So I don't that doesn't mean I was just at 4.35%. That means actual absolute revenue declined year over year. The economy obviously has a big part to do with that, but there's other dynamics that are driving that. There's some of that gap between red and blue line is that negative balancing account. Now, here's the good news. If you look at 2014, the blue in the red line, they're on top of each other. And that is really good news for the franchise. That is why one of the reasons why the balance sheet count has been reduced this year from about 1.4 million to about 1 million. And when we look forward five years out, assuming a couple of things and doing some scenario planning, the most likely scenario in 2020 is that the balancing account is net positive. So it's no longer negative. It's right in that middle kind of yellowish box of a plus 300,000. The worst case scenario is upper left. It's still a negative about a million. So that's essentially the way it is now. And the best case scenario is in your lower right, it's a plus 2 million. And again, our best bet is that it's right in that middle, middle yellowish category of up 307,000. So that's the the quick summary of some of the successes and challenges of the franchise. And I'm now going to hand it off to Marvet to walk through the options in terms of handling this year's annual adjustment.
Speaker 0: Can you clarify, are these slides available online? They just presentation?
Speaker 7: No, they are not. But they will be. And we can make that happen in the morning. And when we publish the agenda for the next meeting, when the action is taken, these will be a part of that.
Speaker 5: That part of our packet.
Speaker 7: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Good evening, Mayor and Council.
Speaker 0: So I am going to. They talk about the actual rate application.
Speaker 1: The HCI submitted their.
Speaker 0: Rate application.
Speaker 1: This year. We use what we call the index method, and in that we really just look at the changes in CPI and we use different indices for the different expenses and also look at their collective bargaining agreement and adjust expenses according to that. And then this is just the collection company. So we.
Speaker 0: Went through that review and for that part, just on the pure, according to their contract, what the.
Speaker 1: Adjustment would be would be a 2.8% adjustment.
Speaker 0: Then they also.
Speaker 1: Submitted.
Speaker 0: With this application a.
Speaker 1: Special rate adjustment.
Speaker 0: And it's relating to the laborers at their material recovery facility. Murph, you're going to hear Murph a lot tonight. So in January and 2014, ACR was approached regarding the San Leandro Living Wage Ordinance, their facilities in San Leandro.
Speaker 1: In October, the ILWU and RCI began discussions on a collective bargaining agreement. And then beginning in December, the workers started receiving the living wages and they have still been working through in those negotiations. Again, the rates that we're setting are the ones going into effect.
Speaker 0: July 1st.
Speaker 1: And. When they submitted this special application rate adjustment, they submitted.
Speaker 0: What's the incremental cost for providing its.
Speaker 1: Employees, the union wages and benefits. So they we.
Speaker 0: Calculated and we went through and.
Speaker 1: Looked at all of those adjustments.
Speaker 0: And they calculated the new cost. We subtracted out what the cost that they had been paying. So we're getting just that incremental cost. They included some profit.
Speaker 1: And then we've included this. They included the city.
Speaker 0: Franchise fees on those.
Speaker 1: Numbers. They took those total cost and they.
Speaker 0: Allocated it to their three franchises.
Speaker 1: For the city of Alameda, City of San Leandro and the city of Livermore, based on each city's proportional share of ten and each that has been processed. So in doing.
Speaker 5: That, I just stop you here. Is any of this material in the report?
Speaker 0: It's in this. That was in the staff report, but it wasn't presented in charts like this. Really? We normally get a report like this attached to the package so that we can all review in advance.
Speaker 5: And the public can see it ahead of time.
Speaker 7: What you'll see as one of the reasons why it was not part of the packet is that there's a new option being presented. So a lot of the same information was presented in the information report. But we've also had late breaking action in the last week with a new option, and that is part of the reason why we took extra time to complete these slides.
Speaker 0: And Brody.
Speaker 6: I said a clarifying question. We go back to the previous slide. So the Alameda San Leandro in Livermore is going to those other two cities and requesting. Requesting that they pay their share. Sorry.
Speaker 0: And is there, like, a time deadline? Why this has to be addressed tonight as opposed to coming back in the future with the report?
Speaker 7: Sure. Pardon me. Exactly the. Exactly.
Speaker 0: Actually what I'm suggesting is come back informational with the report and then come back for a vote. Does it have to be approved tonight or in two weeks, in two weeks, or do we have that much time? We have a month. Yes.
Speaker 7: This is purely informational for tonight.
Speaker 0: I think the mayor is asking if the for 21 council meeting where you're asking for a rate increase, does the rate decision have to be made on 421 or can that be made at a later date?
Speaker 7: It could be made at a later date there. The sooner the better, given the fact that the rate if the rate adjustment is going to account for the increased labor costs. There's three cities involved in that.
Speaker 0: And so they're going to ask you how many pages report on page six. How many more pages do we have?
Speaker 7: About 11. Remember, the whole presentation only takes 12 or 13 minutes if we go if we go all the way through.
Speaker 5: The question here is. Okay. We have public speakers on this one and they've been waiting. It's midnight. They've been here since seven. So I certainly wouldn't want to preempt them. But I, I as a council member, I get that this is informational, but I really prefer to have read the material before it's presented because then I could even ask you questions about it. But is there any harm in you're doing your presentation on the 21st when we actually vote on the rate increases? Is that staff we haven't submitted, have we submitted? Thursday is the deadline yet.
Speaker 7: So those materials will be submitted on Thursday. We'll have the the presentation updated based on the feedback we get tonight. All uploaded on Thursday for the meeting in two weeks.
Speaker 0: So is there five more pages, 11 pages total? Is that what you're saying or. Yes. All right. These continue. Okay. I'm just going to tell you, it's very hard for me to actually read these numbers, these tables some of these tables are very hard for me to read. If we're supposed to be weighing in on them, I can't. This is bigger, but the small columns. Go ahead.
Speaker 1: Okay. So. That is, you can see what the impact hopefully.
Speaker 0: You can see on the impact.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 0: We've got the 20 gallon rate and the 32 gallon rates. If you notice, the majority of the ratepayers.
Speaker 1: In the city are in the 20 and 32 gallon containers. So your current rate when we go to app. Sorry, wrong way. The 2.8, which is the contract, would go up $0.80 if we did the full special rate adjustment. It would go up $3.01. That's the first one. And the three one, the 32 gallon would go up a dollar one with the full 10.58% went up to $3.80. Per month on a per month basis. The. Walks down below is just to show that there.
Speaker 0: Will be.
Speaker 1: Incremental and. There will be incremental increases, but ranging between 11 and 17% in the future related to this. This is the new option that you're going to hear about from ACR tonight, this middle green part in the middle of the 7.7. They are going to describe that. So with that option, again, we're starting at the $0.80 with this new.
Speaker 0: Option, they're going to talk about that they presented to us.
Speaker 1: As $2 and 20 compared to the three to. And the dollar to 77 and the 380.
Speaker 0: The future impact is slightly higher because we're delaying what they're what they are doing.
Speaker 1: And actually I can talk to I'll come back. They're going to they're pushing out some of the increases.
Speaker 0: So we're getting a lower increase in this first year and you'll see a slightly higher between the.
Speaker 1: 27 and $0.39 a month in the next four years after that. So ac.
Speaker 0: I can't. Kenny will talk about this new option. This is what.
Speaker 1: They just brought to us recently. And.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Speaker 8: COUNCIL My name is Kent Cunningham with Alameda County Industries, and I've had the unique experience here of having to work with staff on getting them up to speed on the impacts, the financial impacts of this labor organization with HCI. And I've also had the luxury of working with labor on getting them to understand what the financial impacts are and what we need to do. And as a result, we just signed an IOU with the with with labor, where we've smoothed out the rates or the impact on the rates, I should say, and and did a couple other things where the company itself gave up the profitability, which you saw in an earlier slide. And then the cities come forward and said, all right, we'll drop our incremental franchise fee on that as well. And we're also throwing.
Speaker 7: In where.
Speaker 8: We'll we're going to look at a pilot program for multifamily annuals, which has become kind of a big issue lately. We've had a lot of a lot of requests for that. So we're going to study that in the pilot program. I want to point out that the financial impacts of bringing everyone up to speed and getting labor where it needs to be, I is is a big, big impact on the company. We're not a huge company. The other thing is for labor, getting health benefits in place for for labor is real important. And so the idea is, with this letter of understanding, if we get the the revenue increases that are needed from the cities will be able to implement that. And hopefully we can have that done by July 1st. So there is a bit of an urgency here. And we also have a banking relationship that's they're looking for information, too, because of paying the living wage. Things have gone up in and they're sitting in the wings waiting to see what happens. And with that, I want to ask Andy Rose, our financial advisor, and he's a specialist in waste financing, waste and recycling financing to speak to that in our relationship with our bank. Thank you.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Madam Mayor and council members. I will really try to be brief. In a perfect world, we wouldn't need banks. My job with this company and in fact, most of the solid waste and recycling companies of any size in California is to help them arrange financing. In the old days, you know, decades and decades ago, cities and companies would have like a seven page six or seven page agreement, which basically said you, the private company, will pick up garbage and we will pay you a fair, you know, rate for that. Things are much more complicated now. But the key is still cooperation. And I think this option, the most recent option that has been presented, is a classic example of great cooperation between labor management and a city. Why does that relate to the banks? Because we have been able to so far with their bank say we know there's a problem. We realize we have violated some of our financial covenants because of the living wage increase. But we will fix it and we will fix it cooperatively and only about four or five banks that really will do this kind of business. The rest of them you go in and if you go into your basic banker and say, I have a solid waste company, their eyes roll up in their head. They have no idea how any of this works. It's important that those banks trust that this public private partnership, if you will, for not only this city and this company, but many cities and California and many companies works. I think you have an opportunity here to really show that that it does work and that the banks can trust them. These companies are exceptionally capital intensive, and that isn't just small companies like this. Waste Management, I think, has a billion or two of debt outstanding. So it's important. In a perfect world, there would be bankers, but unfortunately, these companies need their bankers. My job is to do that. The one slide here is just meant to show you that we have some negotiations still to do with the bank. So when you talk about the urgency of the timing, it is urgent. Two factors. One, their credit agreement expires at the end of June. That means at that point, they have to pay off all their debt unless we do a new agreement. And second, it will take a little time to do that. But third, most importantly, fixed charge is sort of what we live and die on. And that means do you have enough cash plus a little cushion to pay your debt service? You can see that even with this option and the rate increase that's being asked for, they will be violating their covenants for the next three years. We can fix that. We can get the bank to readjust the principal payment schedule so that they will be in compliance. But the bank needs to know that these three cities are going to work in cooperation with with this company. I think what they've done is is great, you know, in evening out the increases rather than hitting with one large one now but I can tell you it's extremely important what you and cities like you and companies like this have done has made California a leader in the recycling industry and the recycling diversion percentages in the environmental industries in general. California is now starting to lead in living wage and prevailing wage and actions. And I think you have an opportunity here basically if you approve this option, to continue California's and the city of his leadership in both. Thank you. You. Good evening or good morning. Members of the council, mayor harry herrera spencer. My name is Fred Becker and I'm the secretary treasurer of ILWU Local six. I wanted to give you a brief overview of where why we're here in. In Alameda County and throughout the country, there's a shift from disposal to recycling is as the primary way that we want to handle our our trash. It's about having a sustainable future for our children and the planet that we can. We can enjoy. We can bring tourists to and. Up until December of 2013, Alameda County really had a standard of poverty for the workers who sought material that that's in our trash. That wasn't true of the drivers or the mechanics who work in the industry. They're on the same level as the garbage, the people who collect garbage and dispose of it in the landfills. In 2013, the civic leadership of the city of Fremont approved rate increases, which created a standard which we, you know, recognizing the fiscal realities that that cities face right now. We we. I think can't use the word smooth. We've we've put in a progression that that reduces the impact in any particular year. And Oakland and now Hayward have adopted similar standards to the point where we can say that we have an area standard in Alameda County which will have recycling workers making $20.94, which is not any kind of princely wage. That's the kind of wage that they're making in San Francisco and San Jose at this moment. They're making more than that, but they'll be making $20 in 94 starting in 2019. The slide up there was incorrect. This is actually one more year that that that should be included, which is 2019 through 2020.
Speaker 0: Let me interrupt real quick. So then what that information be included when it comes back?
Speaker 6: Thank you for clarifying questions.
Speaker 0: Brody.
Speaker 6: Maybe you're going to get to this. But what were they making before all of this?
Speaker 7: Countywide the wage increase in minimum wage. These people were making minimum wage. $9. No medical benefits and $99. Correct. Okay. They're currently as as the slide showed you, they're currently making 1459. So. We? So the cities of Fremont, Oakland, Hayward and the overall governing body for trash for recycling in Alameda County stop waste or have recognized the standard that we created starting in Fremont as as a fair way to treat the people who do the important dirty dangerous work of recycling our recyclables. And we are happy to say that as of last week, I and Local six have an agreement that on on what a wage package and benefits will be. We've as Kent said, we've deferred some of the benefits to make it make the lift not so big. The other companies we've dealt with had medical benefits in place. And here there's going to be a big lift in the first year if you look at the numbers that were there. There's a big lift in the first year because of we have to establish medical benefits for people. And following that, you'll see that the increases are very modest even with that increase. Looking at the at at the second slide, you'll see that over the years you've had that rate increases that were higher than what's being proposed right now. And it didn't. And that was with paying people truly poverty wages. So the ACR workers have joined the campaign, which has been going on for three years in Alameda County, to to get respect and a decent living that they can support their families with. And these are the people who make zero waste, which is a laudable policy, which we I think all support of that. They're the people who make it possible by their labor. So when we look at it, we know that this is a matter of civic will. When we look around the bay and we see that San Francisco and San Jose are already paying in excess of what we're talking about, paying five years from now on what people would be earning. We believe that it's a matter of of the kind of cooperation that we've been blessed to receive in terms of civic leadership with the companies that we work with and and our membership working together to make a reality which is implementing a good policy and taking care of the people who do it. And I don't think that when when, you know, recycling is pretty magical for most people, where you put it out on your curb and you never have to worry about it again. It's not so magical to the people who who do the work. And I think that along with the education, we need to recognize that this is the way that we handle garbage now and that this is the way that that, you know, the jobs in the sanitation industry have been jobs that are good , blue collar jobs that support people's families. And there's no reason that the recycling industry should become some kind of local industry and other places are not doing it. We like your support in making sure we make it a reality for a larger part of Alameda County. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 7: And with that, we'll sum up on this last slide. And I would just like to use the pointer to show a couple of things here. So the the informational report focused on two options, that option right there, which is essentially just the indexed increase. And it focused on this option, which was that 10.58% increase. And the new option that ILWU and HCI in the city are presenting tonight is that one right in the middle, the seven points, seven 0%. And for the monthly impacts for most of our rate payers would be about 220 per month or 277 per month. And with that, we'll close our presentation and are happy to answer any questions you may have.
Speaker 5: May I? Mary Spencer.
Speaker 0: Rascoff.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Um, thank you, Mr. Garland. We look forward to having a more complete packet. I did sound like you were all working. So the 11 hour. So I want to disclose at the outset that I have both visited the ACI recycling facility out in San Leandro and went up in and, you know, stood and watched the recycling line workers. And it is a very educational process to see and it's true what Mr. Packer just said. We don't really think once we get those bins out on our curb on the right day and we don't really think about what happens after that, but these folks stand in an assembly line. It's a conveyor belt and it goes by and they're picking out.
Speaker 0: Sorry, you have questions.
Speaker 5: That shouldn't be on there. Yes, I will get to that. And I also met with the Dover. It's a mr. Kenny from RCI. So I could get both of, you know, all perspectives on this. One of the things that troubled me is that so the current rate that ACA is paying hourly to these recycling workers is $14.59 . That's only $0.02 more than the hourly rate that they were paying these workers before the before the last year, before they joined with ILWU. Okay. I'm getting people shaking their heads, but I'm looking at table one, the hourly rate and. Excuse me, they weren't. No, no, no, it's. No, they weren't. The recycling workers were being paid $9 an hour before they joined the union, and then they went to $14.59, and there'll be incremental increases after that. But the burdened rate, the the rate that the company pays with the benefits only went up $0.02 because prior to this , the ECI was paying the temporary agency the fee to supply these workers. And so for some of these workers that were so-called temporary had worked for the company for 13 years. So I'm I'm troubled that that went on for as long as it did. And then there's also I've certainly I'm happy to see the new figures come up, and I'm certainly willing to consider the increase that's being proposed. But I am also aware that at the same time, ECI is talking about reducing the workforce. Is that correct? That that at some point the workforce would be cut almost in half because the number of shifts would be reduced.
Speaker 7: So one of the options in the future is retooling the facility and essentially updating the facility, which would obviate the need for one shift of workers. And that's not something contemplated for this year. It's a possibility four years out.
Speaker 5: So what I wanted to make sure is, though, that so we say the council does decide to increase the rates that our residents pay. But then that's to help absorb the increased salaries. So then if half of that workforce goes away, don't those costs go down as well?
Speaker 7: They would. And those the rate payers would see the benefit of that decline in costs.
Speaker 5: Okay. And are we also being asked to help pay for the retooling of this facility?
Speaker 7: No. No. Was.
Speaker 5: Well, not in this calendar year, but are we in another?
Speaker 7: The short answer, I believe, is no. But Kent is going to going to correct me.
Speaker 8: I if we were to retool, the only way it would be possible is if we were able to come back and say, all right, this is what we can save the ratepayers. And at this point in time, there's no definitive plans, has been ideas kicked around, but there's no definitive plans right now to do any type of retooling. There's a lot of challenges to that. And it's very capital intensive to.
Speaker 5: Okay. And then the last question for now and I'll let others speak is that this is a great thing that we're doing the recycling and getting things out of the landfill. But as we increase recycling and composting, aren't we also reducing revenues that, you know, less is going into the garbage and so so are you are these rates.
Speaker 8: That's a long term issue with what we call migration in our business, where people are going to smaller containers. That has to do with the collection rate structures and how they're structured. Most of the rate structures are based on structures that were built 15 years ago to promote recycling, so the recycling bin was free. Those days are going to change over the next ten years, but how that's going to happen, that's going to be in concert with the city.
Speaker 5: Not before us right now. All right. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Any other member questions at this point? I'm going to go ahead of speakers Ra Ra Ra Alvarado. Then William Dell and Ken Dell.
Speaker 6: I'm not going to see. Least got me to smile.
Speaker 7: Smart Rob Radio. I'm still the executive director of the Berkshire Business Association. I think the reason I'm here this evening is I go back to when I first got the franchise. And frankly, if memory serves me correctly, they were promised X number of residential units that were going to create X number of dollars of revenue. And that never happened. And they've kind of been chasing their tail ever since. I'm here to tell you, they are incredibly receptive to my organization and my members. They're not perfect. Human beings run the company. Human beings pick up the garbage and the recycle. But when there's a problem, we call them and they are incredibly receptive to dealing and addressing the problem. We we cut a deal with good ol Louie Pellegrini back there, waved to the crowd Louie about the garbage cans on Park Street. Those God awful, ugly and crappy green cans got turned out. We put in the plastic ones that can be picked up by the claw on a temporary basis. And because we placed them in areas that was easy to pick up with the claw, they start picking up five days a week instead of three days a week. And I think you will all agree, if you've been paying attention and I know the five of you have and you folks to thank you, that, you know, the whole overflow issue on Park Street and in the district has improved greatly. So I'm here to urge you. To give them the consideration they need. They're doing the best job they can, and I know they are. I believe that this deal that's been worked out between management and labor and I'm thrilled to death to see that. Seems they all seem to be on the same page. So, you know, I'm urging you to give them consideration. I think they're doing a terrific job. I will not bore you, Mayor Spencer or Councilmember Odie with my family tree of garbage until two weeks, because it's just too damn late to do that. But yeah, you're welcome. But if anybody in this room or who still maybe watching it on TV, if you think picking up garbage is easy, it ain't. And the only little kind of funny thing I will tell you is, you know, when my dad was a garbage man doing chemical in Oakland recycling was this, Hey, Ronnie, I got an old dead battery. What should I do with it? I'll throw it in the back of the truck. They're doing a great job. Give them the consideration they deserve. Thank you. Yeah. Oh, that's not. Morning. Morning, Madam Mayor. And Council. My name is William F now because I put the F because there's another William Doyle down the street from me that gets mixed up once in a while. And I'm a fourth generation Alameda and I own a house here and my boy had to leave. He was behind B, he'd be fifth and I'm getting here. I've been a member of Local Six since 1956 and I work 49 years active. I'm retired now for the last ten years and it's always been good to me. It's always been a good union that takes care of their people. And I'm here to support what Freda Becker has said here. And ACA ACA corrected their mistakes. We we were here at your council meeting here last year, the different council, and we pointed out some of the defects at ACA I had with the U.S. temp agency . Since then, they've corrected that. And unfortunately, because of labor needs, I mean, the the workers need the to bring up the higher wages, the company will have to increase their wages because they're going to put out more money, you know, and once they once they correct that because they were the a lot of the money was going to what I call the robber baron, the temp agencies. They were stealing from those people and they were taking a huge amount of money from people that were working very hard, not getting any benefits. And I think they need them. And I hope your council members will take that into consideration and approve it. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. So does that mean Ken Dow is not here? All right. Thank you. The Reverend Yoshi them, Brooke Anderson and then Ava Zapata.
Speaker 7: At Mayor Council members Michael Yoshi, pastor with Buena Vista United Methodist Church and also resident of Alameda. There is good morning to you and there is no better place. I'd love to be at 12:35 a.m. that at the city council.
Speaker 5: And he wouldn't tell a lie, right?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I wouldn't. Well, at least for this issue. And I'm very pleased about the proposal and the recommendations that are coming forward to you. Most of you know, Buena Vista Church is 117 years old. You started in 1898 and serving immigrant populations. And in the course of the last couple of years, we've been doing a lot of work around immigrant community support, and that led us to meeting people who work at ECI because the majority of the workers there at ACR immigrant populations, and we've been very involved in the campaigns for living wage or equitable salaries and for better support of social equity for the place of immigrants in our communities. And many, many of the times you all know this, they're the people doing the jobs behind the scenes that you don't see visible but are really taking care of things for our communities. And so I was going to call you Congresswoman, ask the council member, ask him, I'm glad you went to HCI to see what they do. I've been educated by the job that they do to clean up the garbage we give them.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 7: I heard a preacher once say Jesus was like a garbage man because he cleans up all our stuff, you know? It makes it good. Well, so these folks who do the cleaning up and the sorting out for us out of our recycling, do a tremendous job with you. Do. And it's not an easy job. And I'm just happy that I heard that through the collective bargaining arrangement and the work between management and labor, that they have a proposal before you now that can help with bringing them the equitable wages that they really deserve. And the benefits are not just for them. And we've heard it said also you raised the issue around the temporary agency issues. We had written a letter to ACA, I think, over a year ago about some of those issues. And that's why I'm pleased that they've responded and they have come to the table with with Labor to bring some solutions. And I really do think that this is a great model, an example of how people can work together. And so now takes.
Speaker 8: The city.
Speaker 7: To join that partnership and make this happen for not only for these workers and also for the company, but also for our community as well. I think the social gains that we reap from this will be immeasurable for us going forward. So I really want to just add the support for this proposal before.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Hi. Good morning. Mayor and city council members.
Speaker 1: My name is Brooke Anderson.
Speaker 0: I'm with the Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project, which is a coalition member as well as a steering committee member of the Campaign for Sustainable Recycling in Alameda County. And I'm here tonight to support the rate increase that would go to gain RCI workers up to the Alameda.
Speaker 1: County Workers Standard. I have met a lot of the ECI workers.
Speaker 0: I was out on some of the picket lines in protests. Encouraging the.
Speaker 1: Company to get up to the living.
Speaker 0: Wage was with the workers. It wasn't even this late. I think.
Speaker 1: It was midnight when they.
Speaker 0: Voted.
Speaker 5: To join the union.
Speaker 1: And, you know, many of them were here tonight and I know would have wished to have been able to speak with you had they not.
Speaker 0: Have to wake up at 4 a.m. to get back to sorting the city's trash. And they do a very dirty, dangerous job. They're often sweating through needles and asbestos and diapers and dog feces, everything. You can imagine that people put into a recycling container and deserve our our respect and our support at the same time, day in and day out. All I think about is climate justice. What is it going to take to pull us back from the brink of ecological collapse as we see increasing droughts and heat waves and wildfires and floods and hurricanes that we have brought on with our irresponsible behavior toward the planet. And we know that transitioning our waste system from one of landfill and incineration toward one of zero waste policies is exactly part of that puzzle. And that recycling is essential to that. And these recycling workers, they are heroes of the climate justice movement. And we want to see them have fair wages and have respect and dignity and democracy on the job. Otherwise, the recycling work that they do is not sustainable at all and is really treating those recycling workers as the same trash that we know. And we know Alameda County is better than that. And I want to really urge you guys to do the right thing and increase the rates to support the workers wages. And I know I speak with I'm confident, I speak for the rest of our environmental partners in the coalition, folks like the Sierra Club, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, and supporting that rate increase as well. Thank you. Thank you. Eva Zapata. Pablo Sanchez. Patricia Lambourne. Brian McDonald. Would you like to read it? Yes, please. Come on up. And then I think you're our last speaker.
Speaker 1: My name is Jamie Willis. I'm with the LW and I'm speaking for Patricia Lambourn, who had to leave earlier. My name is Patricia Lamborn. I have lived in Alameda at three, two, two, six and ten all avenue for the last 23 years. I have been grateful to live in a safe and clean city. I was proud when we added recycling to our garbage program. I'm always impressed with the kind and courteous work done by the ECI drivers. I believe they earn a fair wage and they should. I am shocked and saddened to hear that once removed from my home, workers dealing with the hard and dirty work of sorting are underpaid and have been cheated out of the living wages owed them. If we are proud to recycle and care about our planet, it includes the workers who do the work. I support the high recycling workers and their effort to achieve decent and fair wages, health care and safety and security in their work. I know I may see what should be a reasonable increase in my monthly garbage bill. I am willing to do that. It is a responsible and decent way to treat these workers. They make a valuable contribution to my community. I also support ongoing oversight of ECI in their employment practice and fair rate increases.
Speaker 0: Thank you for your attention. Thank you. Counsel comments and Brody.
Speaker 6: I'll try to be brief, but just because this is late doesn't mean that it, you know, it doesn't deserve the attention in the comments and it doesn't mean it's less important. So please bear with me if I go on a little bit long. So. I guess the question is pretty simply stated in the staff report. You know, we're being asked to pay our our fair share, our portion of the incremental increase of the wage and benefit increases. And I really I'm impressed by the way management, labor, the city, the banks are able to come together. And, you know, the first proposal we we saw was a $3 and two cent increase. And now, you know, you've all been able to work together and come up with $2.20. So I appreciate all that effort and all of that collective bargaining. And, you know, the comment that, you know, oh, what if there's a you know. Sorry. I'm a little bit late here. If you mechanize or eliminate one of the shifts and I pretty much I know Fred for a while and I pretty much have a lot of faith that he's going to be able to stand up and protect his workers. So I'm not too worried about that. You guys are going to have a worthy adversary in the ILWU. And as far as the point of, you know, if we get to the point where, you know, we have zero waste and recycling, I mean, that happens while I'm sitting up here. That's a problem I really would really like to have to have to face. So, I mean, that's kind of what our goal is. But I want you to talk a little bit about these workers. You know, I also had a chance to go to the murf, not not the HCI one, but the waste management one and the Callaway Solutions one. And I think to pay these employees, these workers $9 an hour, I mean, it's obscene when you see the work that they have to do. It's a hot, dusty, dirty place. They're all, you know, dressed in their clothes and their other gloves and stuff is coming down this conveyor belt. I mean, to me it's really fast and they got to pick out and they've got to sort everything, you know, they got to sort out the bottles, they have to sort out the plastic, they have to sort out the newspaper, they have to sort out the cardboard, you know. And then as one of the speakers mentioned, there's needles, there's human waste, there's body parts, from what I've heard at some places, and they're doing this work. And to pay them $9, again, I think that's obscene. And I'm glad that we're you know, we're taking efforts to to get these valuable workers up to a living wage. You know, when I first sat down with Fred and where he was talking about the challenges, you know, now we have workers that we're getting paid $9 an hour and not being able to afford to live here in the Bay Area. And they were on Medi-Cal now suddenly losing their Medi-Cal because they had an increase in in their in their wages. You know, that was great for for them. And it was even better that, you know, they were able to look to ILWU and I did the right thing and agreed to give them benefits. And, you know, I did my rant earlier about, you know, how the taxpayers are subsidizing, you know, these labor costs and. I'm just really excited that we're doing the right thing, that Akai is doing the right thing. And I would encourage any of my colleagues and I don't want to prejudge. And if you haven't been to the Murph and seen the work that that these recycling orders do, I mean, I would encourage you to go out there and do it. And and even members of the public that, you know, think that maybe they're a little uncomfortable paying 220 versus $0.80, but maybe I could work on, you know , some type of tours where where people can actually come in and and understand the hard work and respect all of the efforts that all these recycle workers are doing. So I want to thank everyone for all their hard work on this every day.
Speaker 3: So I have a quick question on attachment. One of the detailed staff report, the H e, the consultants economic analysis. I see that, you know, R as single family residential 20 gallon could potentially go up to $29.26 a month or $30.
Speaker 5: Through your Exhibit one.
Speaker 3: Attachment. Exhibit three. Exhibit three and then go down to attachment one, page 15 of 16. So when I look at that and I look at cities like San Leandro, you have their 20 gallon down at 21.6 or or Livermore, their 20 gallon is at 1936. I just want to make sure that we're not the only city who's going to be doing good. I mean, I don't want I don't want Livermore or San Leandro who are part of the HCI community for rewriting on us and what would explain why their rates are so much lower than ours?
Speaker 6: We asked this early.
Speaker 8: I know the other cities were asking them the same thing to do special rate views and increase their rates just as well. I were trying to ask everyone to increase their rates based on their fair share, which is the tonnages. Our meters, about 31% of the tonnage. Livermore has more. San leandro is actually less. There's different dynamics in the different cities as far as how rates are developed. For example, in san leandro, they have a very large industrial base that usually subsidizes residential rates, much more so than in Alameda. And those rates are set based on that sort of thing. Livermore has a lot cheaper landfill fees.
Speaker 7: There than we do here.
Speaker 8: You know, the landfill fees out there are about $45 a ton, whereas here they're.
Speaker 7: $80. $85 a.
Speaker 3: Ton. Well, thank you. I think well, I think what what we really need to see is we got to make sure that we're not getting reloaded on. Yeah. And we need to separate. We'll need to see the details. Quite frankly, that's the purpose of tonight, is to ask the questions, gather the information.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Do you have any other questions at this point?
Speaker 3: Oh, no. I think the residents of Alameda clearly want us to do this. Don't get me wrong. I think they do. I think the residents input an additional. With dollars and $0.20 in the context, I think they can. But by the same token, I think the residents also want us to make sure that San Leandro or Livermore isn't free riding on us. And likewise, I'm sure we wouldn't want a free ride on them. So what we need is if I sounded a bit snippy, we just need the information. I appreciate all the work that ACA has done for Alameda all through the years, and I know that every time ACA comes by my place, you know, the driver is really nice and friendly. We always say hello. And I also I just want to also quickly say I appreciate his executive director, Rob Ratto, coming out here and voicing his opinions. And he did. And I certainly appreciate it. I understand the background and understand this industry. If I sounded snappy, please read it to the hour. So but I think I think the residents would like to see this done. They also want us to gather the information.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Any other comments?
Speaker 2: I think paying the fair wage and getting the benefits us and and our fair share and I think that follows on how some member states are set.
Speaker 0: Member Ashoka.
Speaker 5: And I would also echo that, that I think if, you know, nobody likes to see their bills go up. But I think that we also want to know that we're not creating a hardship for people to live and work in this area and we want to do the right thing. And I concur with remember days ago when these numbers come back, we want to see clearly where all the increases are going. I do want to commend ACA about this pilot program on the multifamily bulky pick sets for anybody who's going to watch this on tape because they're not still up tonight. But, you know, we see this problem with couches and furniture being abandoned on the the streets, which is illegal, by the way, don't do it. But some of the problem was that the if you were above a certain number of units, like four, you didn't get a large dumpster. Now this is going to change. And how soon can we anticipate that, by the way? You're going to work it out. So by the time you come back on, the 21st will have a date. But by July 1st, we can expect that. Okay. So anyway, I bet. And also, Reverend Yoshi, thank you for your your remarks. They, I think, really were just spot on. And it is commendable to see all these different entities working together, labor, the company and the banks. So thank you all for your participation.
Speaker 0: Okay. And I also want to thank you all for actually still being here at 10 minutes to 1 a.m.. My comments go to first of all, I'm looking forward to seeing the report in advance. I appreciate that there was apparently negotiations that brought the rate down. I was concerned about the higher rate of up to $57 per year. I would like to see the annual included, not just the monthly when this comes back with the different options or whatever. How are you going to break it down but also include the annual. I thought the member Ashcroft raised a good point earlier in regards to the amount that the company was paying to the. To the temp agency. That needs to be discussed here because that was the out of pocket before, regardless of the rate that the employees are receiving, is higher. But the temp agency, it's my understanding and this is what I want to have come back in writing. I want to know what the temp agency was charging, what the company was paying out of pocket then, because it's my understanding that there's been a shift that now that temp agency has been taken out of the equation, leaving money, more money available than to go to the employees to cover the employees wages without necessarily increasing the out-of-pocket cost to the company. So I want to see those numbers come back. So I think that that's very legitimate because and I want to know exactly what the temp agency was being paid, for instance, in the past year . I'm not sure how long this contract has been, but I want to know what the temp agency was being paid because that's no longer being paid. A concern I have is that the company should not be profiting from this, and I cannot tell from these numbers. The. On one of these pages, it says, okay, so I want to see the annual increase, but it speaks to a net income for the company. It does not tell me what the gross income is. And this memo from HCI on page two of five, it speaks to net income depreciation and whatnot. I can there's no gross income here. So that to me is missing because I cannot tell what the profits are from the company separate from the wages and in order. And at the same time whether or not $2 me or $2.20 may or may not seem that significant. We're talking about an annual basis and then we're talking about year after year. So it's important to me that this not result in a revenue increase or that that be shown clearly that we are asking our our homeowners and businesses to pay more to increase it. So I need to know how it impacts the company. I can't tell from what's provided here what the. We know what the wages are of the people that are picking up the trash. That's what we've been hearing. I have yet to hear how much money the corporate corporate earned. I don't see any disclosure. So without that, I'm I actually can not necessarily support the rate increase because from what I can tell, they were paying the temp firm before. And now all that money is going to the employees because the middle man has been eliminated. But but it's important. And we all hear continually, continually, unfortunately, that there are people that are being pushed out of our community because they cannot afford the increases. And we are expecting water to go up. We've had rents go up, then this going up. It needs to be justified that it clearly does not result in an increase to the company. And with these numbers here, I think it's been sufficient. And then I also. So the regional rates, I think that that needs to come back clearly within the presentation. It was on page 15 of 16 on exhibit three. And then there's also a statement in regards to the balancing account that there's a -$1.66 million that I believe the city owes ACA and that needs to be addressed. What is the plan to address that? I don't I saw the statement in there, but I don't see any comments in regards to how we're addressing that and that obviously that's an issue. It appears that there is a reduction in that amount of $371,000. However, if here we have a company that appears to be struggling, they're coming to us to ask for more money. And it appears that the city owes them two thirds of $1,000,000. So that that's something that I think should be addressed. All right. Any other comments? Thank you very much. And we have one more agenda item. Well, actually seven. City manager. Did you have communications?
Speaker 7: Yes. I'd like to go to bed now.
Speaker 0: All right. Eight. Sorry. A few more minutes. Eight. Oral communication on agenda. Do we have any more those? No. All right, now.
Speaker 5: I need to announce that I attended the last.
Speaker 6: That's.
Speaker 5: That's. That's a public vote.
Speaker 0: We're not quite there yet. Nine a we have a council referral, and I'm going to hand it off to member de Saag.
Recommendation to Accept an Informational Report on Establishing Integrated Waste Collection Ceiling Rates and Service Fees for Alameda County Industries, Inc. for Rate Period 14 (July 2015 to June 2016). (Public Works 274)