The Valley Signal

Government & Accountability

Teton County Weighs Putting Its Garbage Franchise Out to Bid for the First Time Since 2015

Teton County commissioners postponed a decision on whether to put the county's exclusive garbage franchise out to bid or renew it with RAD Curbside.

By Valley Signal Staff ·

DRIGGS — Teton County commissioners on August 10 postponed a decision on whether to put the county's exclusive garbage franchise out to bid for the first time since 2015 or renew it with RAD Curbside.

The board sent the question to its first meeting in September after its deputy attorney said the county could not sign the new contract RAD has proposed.

RAD Curbside has collected the valley's residential and commercial trash and recyclables under an exclusive county garbage franchise since August 2015, when the county awarded it after an eight-month competitive procurement. Commissioners renewed the agreement for five years in 2022, and it expires in 2027. Under its terms the contract extends automatically for another five years unless the county gives written notice at least a year before expiration. Public Works put a non-renewal notice, drafted by the civil deputy prosecutor, on the August 10 agenda to keep that option open.

Public Works, on advice from the county's legal team, recommended against adopting RAD's proposed replacement agreement. Deputy prosecutor Jim Blunk told commissioners he had amended seven versions of the contract and still could not sign the one on file.

The county wants the franchise held to curbside collection, he said, but "every one of your contracts came back with having something to do with having commercial waste." RAD's language would also let the company assign the contract to anyone with "a decent financial statement," Blunk said, when control over any assignment should stay with the county because "this is a personal services contract." Where the county wanted cost-of-living increases subject to a commission vote, RAD's version made them automatic. And RAD had at one point asked the county to "agree to pay a blank check" toward costs from a fire at a dumpster at the salvage site, Blunk said, language the company later dropped. "I've never in 55 years worked harder on a contract," he said.

RAD's proposal also seeks a 4.6 percent rate increase tied to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Western consumer price index, against a franchise fee of $10 per ton that has not changed since 2015. Public Works has estimated that fee brings the county about $46,000 a year.

The disagreement continues the exclusivity questions two of three commissioners raised at an April work session, when the board declined to adopt the same agreement and directed staff to keep negotiating. Renewing without a new bid, Johnson told commissioners then, would leave the franchise unbid for about 19 years.

RAD Curbside converted from an Idaho corporation to a Delaware limited liability company in July 2025, a filing with the Idaho Secretary of State shows. Commissioner Ron James asked what that means for the franchise: if the county is now doing business with a new entity and writing a new contract, "are we obligated then to bid it out?" The chair said the county's legal read was that it might not be, "as long as it's pretty much the same idea of the contract," but allowed "there is some gray area there." "I would like to be pretty dadgum dead sure on that," James said.

Public Works Director Darryl Johnson told the board the county had already removed the one provision that bore on the question, contract language that let the county reevaluate the franchise if more than half of RAD's ownership changed hands. The county could not say who controls the reorganized company now. "Who that is, we don't know," Johnson said. "We weren't told."

RAD owner David Hudacsko asked commissioners to postpone the notice and keep negotiating one on one. The board agreed, and set a November 18 deadline to deliver the notice if the two sides cannot reach terms.

What to watch: The franchise returns to the commissioners at their first September meeting. If no agreement is reached, the county must decide by November 18 whether to issue the non-renewal notice, which would let it either extend RAD's contract or seek competing bids when the garbage franchise expires in 2027.

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