Point Reyes Light - November 28, 2002

BPUD still negotiating garbage-pickup contract

By Andrew Pridgen

Directors of Bolinas Public Utility District last Wednesday learned that a final contract has not yet been worked out with the town’s new garbage-pickup service, Biagini Waste Reduction.

The contract, which is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1 is supposed to expire on Jan. 1, 2012.

Assuming BPUD signs a franchise agreement with the firm, which is owned by Michael Biagini of San Anselmo, will be the first in West Marin not held by Waste Management. That conglomerate lost its rapport with BPUD directors when it sued the district over who owed how much of the costs involved in closing the West Marin Sanitary Landfill in 1998.

After BPUD had rung up legal costs, Waste Management dropped the lawsuit.

Waste Management has to be allowed to finish its last billing cycle for Bolinas customers on Dec. 31. BPUD directors and Biagini Waste Reduction officials previously said the franchise for the town’s pickup service could take effect as early as this month. However, a contract, including insurance provisions has yet to be signed.

"We agreed to a more relaxed schedule," said BPUD manager Phil Buchanan after the meeting. "I don’t see any reason why we won’t be starting [the new service] on the first of the year. The provider only needs 30 days to get ready, and he’s making lots of preparation even though the contract hasn’t been signed."

In other BPUD news last week:

• Directors refused to sell neighboring landowner Pam Whitehead a BPUD-owned 40-foot by 100-foot lot on Tulip Road between Larch and Poplar roads. Directors said they want to preserve small lots as open space unless an adjacent owner faces abatement action from county. A resolution clarifying this policy will be voted on during in December.

• With complaints of road obstructions continuing, Buchanan said each complaint will continue to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. The district hopes homeowners can resolve disputes complaints are on their way to resolution now.

One complaint involved neighbors on Zebra Road between Yucca Road and Ocean Parkway. Director Buchanan said that stretch of Zebra Road is "more like a drainage swale during the winter." One property owner has allowed tenants to block part of the road, Buchanan said, while another, whose home is on edge of a cliff, needs to create a new driveway using part of the blocked road. Buchanan said the neighbors are cooperating with each other.

• On Aspen Road between Poplar and Larch roads plants have grown out of a drainage ditch, and they along with a pile of compost are blocking part of Aspen Road. The owner of the plants and compost owner has agreed to remove the obstructions, the BPUD manager noted.

"These are conflicts we hope [residents] can solve for themselves," he said, "and we don’t have to get too involved."

• Finally, two terms on the Mesa Park board will expire in January: Jack Seidman’s, which is appointed by both BPUD directors and Bolinas-Stinson School District trustees, and Robert Hunter’s, the director having resigned last spring.

BPUD directors last week also appointed Andy Blake, who currently sits on the Mesa Park Board, to the district’s Path Options Committee. And they began a review of Mesa Park’s needs now that it will be receiving up to $22,000 in tax revenues as a result of townspeople on Nov. 5 approving a $36 per year parcel tax for park improvements.

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