The Yavapai County Development Services, which heads up the county’s Environmental Unit, has stopped programming for both recycling and Wastewater Site Investigations on the same day.
On May 2, the contract between the county and Sedona Recycles for the recycling drop-offs in Cornville and the Village of Oak Creek ended. That same day, the county also privatized all on-site wastewater disposal investigations.
“Currently, we’re not really planning on bidding [for a new recycling company] that at this point,” Yavapai County Public Works Director Dan Cherry said. “I think Sedona Recycles has other facilities within the city of Sedona …. And then there are private companies like Patriot [Disposal] that do recycling at the homes through a normal residential service. And so we’ve tried to encourage people to consider those as well if they want to continue recycling.”
When Sedona Recycles sent out its announcement and letter from its board, leaders stated that the county refused to up their contract prices to current prices. The county wanted to renew the contract as it usually does in November 2021 with the same exact cost as before.
“I think with inflationary costs and fuel costs going up and whatnot, it just became very difficult for Sedona Recycles to continue operating at what the contract pricing was,” Cherry said. “And they asked us if we would revise the pricing, and we can’t just do that. That’s not how our procurement policies work. We just have to get these things out. And I think the cost was anticipated to be significantly higher, and we have the opportunity to continue the contract as stated. But Sedona Recycles opted to terminate it instead.”
Just two weeks before the termination of the recycling contract and site investigations, the county approved a new Development Services Director, Jeremy Dye, although he had been serving as interim director since mid-November of 2021.
“Thank you for implementing many of the changes recommended by our recent study of the department,” Yavapai County Board of Supervisors Vice Chairman and District 2 Supervisor James Gregory said to Dye at his approval by the board back in April.
Although Gregory did not specify which changes, the county announced both changes in April and during Dye’s leadership of the development services unit. But the date was a coincidence for the ending of the programs, as both were discussed separately.
Now applicants for on-site wastewater disposal systems must hire their own Arizona professional engineer, sanitarian or geologist to investigate and submit the findings to the county’s online service, Citzenserve. There is also a $75 fee that must be paid to the county for any non-county conducted site investigation and submittal, per the county’s announcement.
Yavapai County District 3 Supervisor Donna Michaels, whose district includes Cornville and the Village of Oak Creek, did not respond when Sedona Red Rock News reached out for comment about cutting the programs.
As for recycling, the county maintains that it was up to Sedona Recycles to end the contract with the county despite attempts to negotiate on both ends.
