selected<\/a> a different firm, California Waste Solutions, to handle recycling.\u00a0<\/p>\nIn the lawsuit filed Friday, Waste Management claims Oakland has breached the agreement by unfairly penalizing the company for failing to meet waste disposal targets and by refusing to negotiate contract modifications in good faith. \u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the lawsuit, Oakland officials wrongfully tried to assess nearly $24 million in \u201cliquidated damages\u201d against the company. Waste Management also accused the city of applying lower rates on the company, failing to implement a \u201cspecial assessment program\u201d to collect money from customers who aren\u2019t paying for trash service, and generally failing to address illegal dumping.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear how the lawsuit might affect Oakland residents and businesses. Officials from Waste Management and the Oakland City Attorney\u2019s Office did not immediately respond to interview requests. The city has not yet filed a response to the lawsuit. <\/p>\n
These allegations aren\u2019t actually new: Waste Management first brought legal claims against the city in 2020 to address these issues. But the parties wanted to negotiate an extension and modifications of Waste Management\u2019s contract, so they agreed to set aside their differences while trying to find a compromise. The city agreed to toll, or hit pause, on the statute of limitations for Waste Management\u2019s legal claims. This meant that Waste Management wouldn\u2019t lose the right to file a lawsuit in court if the talks went south.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Closed-door negotiations about the contract have been going on since June, which Waste Management characterized as \u201cproductive\u201d in the new court filing. But the company wrote that Oakland recently refused to continue tolling the deadline for Waste Management to file its complaint. The company doesn\u2019t say why in its filing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs such, although WMAC still desires to reach a negotiated resolution with the City, it has been forced to institute this action to preserve its claims,\u201d the complaint stated.<\/p>\n
Waste Management accuses Oakland of imposing unfair penalties<\/p>\n
As part of Oakland\u2019s 10-year agreement with Waste Management, the city wanted to achieve its \u201cZero Waste\u201d goal, which aimed to divert as much as 75% of solid waste away from landfills and into recycling and composting. To do this, Waste Management agreed to build a plant to process solid waste. The city also demanded that Waste Management enter into a subcontract with East Bay Municipal Utility District, or EBMUD, which would construct its own facility for processing commercial organic materials. Waste Management objected to this subcontract but went ahead with it, according to the complaint.\u00a0<\/p>\n
EBMUD failed to build the facility, which forced Waste Management to look elsewhere. Some facilities said they were unable to help, citing the \u201chighly contaminated nature of the materials\u201d and high processing costs. The city also shot down one of the firms that Waste Management was prepared to work with.<\/p>\n
As a result of these delays, Waste Management said it missed its targets for diverting waste from landfills. Instead of taking into account the disruption caused by EBMUD, the city penalized Waste Management by trying to impose nearly $24 million in \u201cliquidated damages\u201d for failing to deliver organic scraps to city-approved facilities, and for failing to collect all mixed materials from Oakland households. Waste Management argued that these penalties are not authorized in their agreement and also unfair, given the unanticipated delays and costs.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the company, its contract gives it the right to renegotiate terms with Oakland in the event of a big external change. But Oakland officials refused to adjust the contract to compensate Waste Management \u201cfor the massive cost\u201d caused by EBMUD\u2019s exit. Waste Management also suffered financial losses during the COVID-19 pandemic, including \u201cdrastically reduced\u201d commercial business during shutdowns, and expenses on special COVID-19 pay and protective equipment for workers.<\/p>\n
Oakland\u2019s failure to address illegal dumping is also cited as an issue in the lawsuit. Waste Management claims Oakland \u201crefuses to enforce existing ordinances or to enact additional ordinances to abate illegal dumping\u201d or to \u201chold private and public property owners accountable for failing to secure and safeguard their property,\u201d which results in more dumping.<\/p>\n
“*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Oakland celebrated Halloween last Friday, the city received an unpleasant treat: a lawsuit from its garbage collector.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[28070,10372,1846,143,8552,145,144,2315],"class_list":{"0":"post-41536","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-ebmud","9":"tag-illegal-dumping","10":"tag-lawsuit","11":"tag-oakland","12":"tag-oakland-city-attorney","13":"tag-oakland-headlines","14":"tag-oakland-news","15":"tag-waste-management"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}