September 20, 2007
Norcal Seeks 30 Percent Rate Increase

Photo by Dave Maxwell Tom Morris of Norcal speaking to the Lincoln County Commissioners.

By Dave Maxwell

Having realized that residents of Lincoln County did not want to have local waste drop box facilities to be open only twice a year if they decided to go with an offered curbside pickup service, Norcal Waste Systems appeared before the Lincoln County Commissioners last Monday to ask for a 30 percent increase in rates, which their 49-year contract with the County allows them to do.

Tom Norris and Paul Yamamoto of the Norcal offices in San Francisco were present and Norris said they were now proposing to “Go back to square one and ask for the 30 percent increase that’s in accordance with the contract, which was what we submitted on May 29.”

He also said the financial statement provided by Norcal to the County shows they are losing $424,000 a year at the current rates. Yet he admitted that even a 30 percent increase will not keep the company from still losing over $335,000 next year. It will take several years of annual 30 percent increases to get the company up to the $729,000 they require to operate without a loss. He said if Norcal were able to make $729,000 per year it would be a $46,000 profit for the company.

But County Commissioners were not much in the mood to hear the request as made. Most of the reason, as stated by Chairman Ronda Hornbeck, is that a contract Norcal said they had “almost in hand,” when they began service in Lincoln County, to haul thousands of tons of garbage from Los Angeles to a Lincoln County land fill site would bring in enough money that would cut the cost of service to Lincoln County residents substantially, and eventually maybe none at all. Norcal said they needed a contract for business with Lincoln County in order to secure the Los Angeles contract. Mrs. Hornbeck said Norcal was almost pleading for a “rush to decision. It was almost a sure bet.”

But after several years, Norcal still has not received the contract, even though negotiations are continuing.

Mrs. Hornbeck told Norris that she felt Norcal had represented themselves at the time as having a “sure bet” and should not be coming back to the Commission now asking for a 30 percent annual increase when they have failed to meet their promise of some years ago.

Commissioners told Norcal they were not ready to accept a request for 30 percent. Norris said he had not expected this response from the Commission and was not able to make another offer on the spot. He and Mr. Yamamoto said they wanted to continue to work with Lincoln County on this issue and would return to the Norcal Headquarters in San Francisco to work out another proposal and come back for the October 1 Commission meeting.