City of McFarland Recycling Bills?

I was wondering if anyone else in town was surprised to see that the city sent out two bills this month, one for water and one for our recycling services for ~$15. We have had several people calling us today that are upset about receiving these bills. I thought that our last property tax bill already included a charge for the recycling services and I'm a bit confused about this bill. Is this an additional charge on top of everything else?

http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/RecycleBill.pdf

So I wonder what would happen if we just didn't pay this recycling bill? Would Sunset just come by and pick up our recycling bins? Hmm..Maybe this is a thought worth pursuing. Many of our friends and family members have told us that they don't even put their recyclable material into these bins and they prefer to do their own recycling. Maybe we should boycott Sunset Waste and their services to send a message to the city council.

Delano Recycling Services

The Delano city council is on the brink of making the same mistake that the McFarland city council made by failing to consider offers from multiple vendors for their recycling services. A group of people from the Delano Chamber of Commerce is suggesting that the Delano city council make their bidding process for recycling services more fair and open it up to different vendors. Apparently no one on the council had bothered to look at the difference in the costs between Sunset Waste and R&F Disposal, even though R&F Disposal seems to be willing to provide the recycling services at a much lower cost. Here is a copy of the article published in the Delano record this week.

http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/042806Article.pdf

We also received a copy of a letter written to members of the chamber of commerce listing the top ten reasons why the city council should make their bidding process more open to multiple vendors. Along with the letter is a copy of a memo written by the Delano city engineer listing a price comparison between Sunset Waste, R&F Disposal, and Tule Trash. The price comparison shows that R&F is the lowest bidder in most of the service categories.

http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/CommerceLetter.pdf

City Council Recall Nomination Papers

The nomination papers for people that are interested in running for the mayor and councilmen positions on August 15th are now available at city hall. I have been told that the deadline to file the paperwork is June 1st so there is still plenty of time to pick up and complete these forms. I hope that we end up with a good group of honest people that are willing to run for office this time. I have included copies of some of the forms that are required to be filled out just to give people an idea of what to expect. Anyone interested in running should pick up original copies at city hall.

http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/CodeCampaignPractices.pdf
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/nomination.pdf
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/statguide.pdf
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/forlang1.pdf

I have heard some people in the community suggest that we should host an open forum where all of the candidates that are running for office, including the people that are being recalled, would be invited to sit on a panel and have people from the community come out and ask them questions. I think it's a good idea and I would be interested in hearing what others have to think about this.

Notice to Anonymous Person

I received a post the other day from a person who is claiming that there have been several lawsuits filed with the school district. This person lists some names of people and the lawsuits that are supposedly being filed. My request to this person is that you contact me directly and fax me a copy of the documents that you have obtained that support your claims. Also, I will require that you be willing to identify yourself and allow me to list your name on the blog as the person that discovered the evidence. If you agree to this, send me an email at rrodartejr@earthlink.net so that I can provide you with my fax number.

I think it is only fair to provide as much evidence as possible for everyone else to see and I think that you should have the courage to identify yourself as the person that is bringing up this issue.

April 13th City Council Meeting

On Thursday evening, the city council approved an election date for the city council recall. The date has been set for August 15th, 2006. We have been told that paperwork for people interested in running for this election will be made available at city hall in the next couple of weeks. This paperwork will need to be filed with the city by June 1st.

McFarland School Board Recall Stopped!

We just received some great news. The McFarland school board recall has officially been stopped! Another win for the good guys. Sometime this morning a Kern County judge decided to end the recall after viewing all of the evidence of how signatures were collected illegally.

Issues with Sunset Waste Recycling

A representative from Sunset Waste has been going around to some of the businesses in town attempting to get letters of recommendation from them. They approached one local business with their own letter of recommendation already prepared and typed up, when the owner was not available the company representative was requesting that employees at the business sign the letter. Seems like a very strange method of trying to solicit recommendations. I did a bit of research on them and it appears that they may be struggling to sign on more cities to their recycling contracts. I found some recent news articles that were interesting.

The City of Porterville found that they could handle their own recycling services at an estimated cost of $0.90/month for every household compared to the $4/month that Sunset Waste wanted to charge them so that Sunset could purchase new trucks. They had existing garbage trucks that were servicing the city and they could be used to lower the collection costs to its citizens. Does this sound familiar? Very similar to what we faced here in McFarland, but the Porterville council made the correct choice and decided to save taxpayer money and keep the services in house.
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/Sunset_Porterville.pdf

The City of Visalia decided not to extend their contract with Sunset Waste because they found that they could potentially profit from the recyclable material that they are currently not being paid for. It appears that Sunset charges us ~$4.75/month, then they turn around and still make a profit from the sale of the recyclable material that they pick up. What a sweet deal. At least with R&F we could have cut our cost down to $2.25/month.
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/Sunset_Visalia.pdf

Mas Magazine Article

Mas magazine published an article on the city council recall effort in this week's issue.

I like this quote from the article regarding the mayor's use of city money, "According to Melendez, it was understood he would pay the money back to the city, but residents are asking why it took the mayor so long to reimburse the funds." The reporter also refers to Melendez's use of money as "borrowing". I liked how the reporter summarized the key expenses along with the timelines, showing that over a year and a half went by before the mayor paid the money back.

Cantu once again demonstrates his faithful support of Melendez. He defends the mayor by saying that city money was used because purchasing the tickets for both the mayor and his wife at the same time provided a discount on the airfare. Give me a break. The mayor waits a year and a half to pay back the money and Cantu still buys into his story. Clearly Cantu lacks any common sense and this is why he should not be on the city council. He also makes a comment saying that the cost per container for the recyclable garbage contract with Sunset was less expensive than what R&F offered. Last time I checked, it was clear from reading the bid proposals that R&F was offering this service for half the cost. I hear that Cantu is a teacher, I hope that he isn't a math teacher.

http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/040606_Mas.pdf

McFarland City Council Recall Update

More great news! We were just informed that the city council recall petitions were found to have enough valid signatures for Melendez, Cantu, and Santillano. So it looks like we will be having another election in the next few months. Let's take advantage of this opportunity and clean up our city council. Looks like we still stand a chance at turning things around and undoing the 9th street gang's work.

Here is a copy of the notice that we received from the city clerk:
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/Petition_Certification2.pdf