Aberdeen brings back LeMay for garbage pickup

The City of Aberdeen is sticking with LeMay as its garbage pickup provider, as its contract with Hometown Sanitation in Hoquiam didn’t materialize.

At Wednesday’s Aberdeen City Council Meeting, Mayor Erik Larson said the city is negotiating a three-year contract extension with LeMay, which has provided service to Aberdeen for decades.

Earlier this year, the city gave notice of termination of its contract with LeMay in order to put the service out for bid. The city approved a proposal in April from Hometown Sanitation in Hoquiam to become the new garbage service provider, which would have taken effect in the fall when the LeMay contract was going to expire.

However, a few weeks after the city approved the decision to sign with Hometown, the company withdrew the proposal, and a contract was never finalized.

Since then the city has discussed with LeMay, and reached an agreement to continue serving as the solid waste service provider. When asked why Hometown withdrew its proposal, Larson said it was due to customer information not being made available to them by LeMay such as the level of service customers had and who had service.

“It became impossible for (Hometown) to fulfill the contract due to delays, mostly relating to the lack of that information,” said Larson. “It was necessary for them in starting their operation.”

While the city will be continuing with LeMay, Larson said the two parties agreed that in the future, customer information would be better reported to the city, and that he anticipates putting the waste service provider contract out to bid again after the new, three-year contract is done.

“We anticipate reissuing a solid waste services (request for proposals) process in a more extensive manner with the extra information and an extended timeline during that three-year period, with an expectation of once again putting out for bid our waste services,” said Larson.