Franklin Lakes March 6, 2013 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • Page 7 Recycling company sues borough to void contract by Frank J. McMahon The owner of the Gaeta Recycling Company of Paterson has filed a lawsuit against the Borough of Franklin Lakes seeking to void the five-year garbage and recycling collection and disposal contract the council awarded to Advanced Waste Systems, Inc. of Pompton Plains in December. Advanced Waste Systems was the lowest bidder for the contract, and Gaeta Recycling was the second lowest bidder. Anthony Gaeta, the owner of the Gaeta Recycling Company and a resident of the borough, claims the contract should not have been awarded to Advance Waste Systems for several reasons. In the lawsuit, Gaeta claims the contract was awarded to Advanced Waste Systems even though he had advised the council that company had entered into a contract to sell its assets to Action Carting Environmental Services, Inc. and Advance Waste Systems had also sold some of its vehicles to Action Carting, which Gaeta said were to be dedicated to the Franklin Lakes contract, according to the bid specifications. In addition, Gaeta claims one of the vehicles to be dedicated to the Franklin Lakes contract was not owned by Advance Waste Systems, but leased and the bid specifications indicated there were to be no vehicle leases. Gaeta also claims in his lawsuit that Advance Waste Systems has been violating the terms of its contract with the borough by using vehicles that do not have the required New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection decals and it has been comingling solid waste and recyclables, and it has not allocated sufficient manpower and/ or vehicles stretching one day pickups to two or three days with collections taking place outside the hours allowed by the contract. Gaeta also claims that Advance Waste Systems had provided a performance bond that is not rated as required by the bid specifications. Joseph Gonnella, the attorney for Advance Waste Systems, disputes Gaeta’s claims calling them “nonsensical” and meant to confuse and deflect the intent of the state’s public bidding statute, which is meant to obtain the lowest bid price from a responsible bidder. He argues that Advance Waste Systems has met that burden. Gonnella claims none of the issues raised by Gaeta are consequential and do not merit a disqualification of the bid by Advance Waste Systems, Inc. He says the principles that underlie all public bidding schemes are fundamentally the same in that the statutory goal guiding the decision to accept a bid is to select the responsible bidder whose bid will be most advantageous to the bidding authority. Gaeta wants the court to void the Advance Waste Systems contract and award it to his company as the lowest responsible bidder. He attended a public meeting of the borough council on Dec. 18, the night the council was scheduled to award a new contract for garbage and recycling collection to Advance Waste Systems. At that meeting, Gaeta advised the borough’s governing body that the company they were about to award the contract to was being sold to another company and he urged the council to research the matter before making the contract award. “The low bidder has a deal to sell his company,” Gaeta said. “He shouldn’t bid and then sell his company, so I request you do more research before awarding the bid.” Gaeta also claimed at that meeting that there were other discrepancies in the bid made by Advanced Waste Systems. Franklin Lakes Borough Administrator Gregory Hart pointed out, however, that the new contract was due to start on Jan. 1 and the Advanced Waste Systems bid was significantly less than the other bids received and would save the borough $300,000 over the five-year term of the (continued on page 8)