By DOTTY NIST
The transfer of Dayco, Inc.’s franchise agreement for household garbage collection north of the bay in Walton County to Waste Management, Inc., of Florida has been approved by the Walton County Board of County Commissioners (BCC).
The decision took place at the Feb. 22 BCC regular meeting. The franchise transfer is to take effect on Feb. 28.
Currently Waste Management is collector for household garbage only for the area south of the bay and along the bay near Villa Tasso. The decision gives the company an exclusive franchise in the county’s unincorporated areas, both north and south, with certain exceptions.
At the meeting, the commissioners were provided with a Dec. 8, 2010, letter from Leroy D. Day of Dayco indicating that Waste Management was planning to acquire “certain assets” of the company in the near future, and that it was Dayco’s intent to assign its franchise with the county to Waste Management “in connection with the Acquisition.”
The commissioners approved a new 26-page franchise agreement with Waste Management, which provides for the company to furnish, not only residential collection services, but curbside yard trash collection services and commercial collection services. The new agreement takes effect on Feb. 28 and is set up to run through the end of 2016. It is set up to renew automatically every five years unless terminated by one of the parties.
Walton County pays for the collection of household garbage through a local option sales tax.
At one point there had been bad feelings between Dayco and the county when in 2010 billing discrepancies and a billing overcharge had been identified by the county, resulting in a disagreement and Dayco filing suit against the county. Dayco dropped the lawsuit in August 2010. The matter led the county to closely examine billing in connection with all its waste collection companies, who cooperated to resolve issues of this kind.
The franchise agreement with Waste Management states the number of residences agreed on by the company and the county to be served for garbage collection—and provides a methodology for the county to adjust that count on a quarterly basis through, among other means, accounting for new certificates of occupancy (COs) and verifying that the address of the new CO is not among those already being served.
Also at the Feb. 22 meeting, the commissioners approved a parallel agreement with Waste Management for disposal of solid waste and its transport a regional landfill.
All agreements were approved in a 3-1 vote, with County Commissioner Larry Jones not present for the meeting and District 4 Commissioner Sara Comander voting no. Comander commented that her vote was not a reflection on the companies, both of which which she believes to be good ones. She said the reason was her feeling that the public had not been made sufficiently aware of what the county was doing in this matter.