By Ray Gronberg

gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648

DURHAM -- City Council members voted 5-2 Monday night to hire Sonoco Recycling to haul Durham's recycled goods to a sorting plant in Raleigh for the next two years.

The decision to award the no-cost-to-the-city deal to Sonoco squared with the recommendation that came from City Manager Tom Bonfield and his staff.

Mayor Bill Bell and Councilwoman Cora Cole-McFadden voted against the deal, clearly preferring to give the contract to a competing firm, Tidewater Fibre, that until this summer handled curbside recycling for the city.

Members of the majority made it clear the administration's support for working with Sonoco was decisive.

"We pay these people considerable sums of money, in my opinion, to come forth with recommendations based on their sound, careful analysis of facts," Councilman Howard Clement said. "Nothing that's been offered by [Tidewater] offsets that recommendation."

Monday's vote capped a debate that had gone back and forth since city officials decided last spring to handle curbside collections in-house. The city doesn't have a sorting plant of its own, and so needed to hire a contractor that has one to prepare recycled goods for resale.

Tidewater and Sonoco were two of four companies that bid for the work. The early leader, FCR Recycling, lost ground after the council at Bell's urging said in August it wanted a no-cost, no-risk deal.

The other firms were willing to go along, but FCR said the city would have to haul goods to its plant in Greensboro.

Administrators preferred Sonoco because the company threw some sweeteners into the deal at its own expense, including costly electronics recycling.

Tidewater officials said they'd take a deal on the same terms as Sonoco and argued their firm should get the contract to avoid job losses at its Durham shipment facility. The company was planning to haul goods to a sorting plant in Chesapeake, Va.

"It boils down to one issue: Jobs, jobs, jobs," said Ken Spaulding, one of two Durham attorneys Tidewater hired to lobby for it. The other was James "Butch" Williams.

The claim sparked a lengthy cross-examination by Councilman Mike Woodard of Tidewater co-owner Michael Benedetto.

Benedetto had previously said 31 workers at the company's Durham facility would lose their jobs. But he conceded that the number was now down to 24, in part, Woodard said, due to a separate decision by Tidewater to sell off part of its business.

Of those, two are office staff and six work primarily on recycling contracts Tidewater has with Alamance and Durham counties.

Woodard pressed Benedetto on whether the loss of the city's business means Tidewater would eliminate its entire Durham staff.

Benedetto said it did, although he admitted that the company's other contracts have time still to run and there's a possibility they could be renewed or could become "opportunities for other investors."

Woodard wasn't convinced. Nor was Clement, who termed the potential job losses "alleged."

Officials and company representatives also sparred over claims by Benedetto that Sonoco's Durham shipment point in the UDI Industrial Park is unsafe, and that 15 to 20 percent of the material the city collects wouldn't be eligible under the contract for recycling.

Sonoco representatives said they there hadn't been an on-the-job injury at the facility in the last 400 days.

Deputy City Manager Ted Voorhees, meanwhile, said a test delivery of a load of recycling to Sonoco had found only 8 percent of the material was "unacceptable" for the program.

Sonoco has to take everything the city delivers up to 20 percent unacceptable. Beyond that, the city has to take goods back and send them to the Club Boulevard transfer station for delivery to and burial in a Virginia landfill.

Bell said that given Tidewater's willingness to accept the same deal and its track record of working with the city, he found the jobs argument compelling. "I take seriously we have a certain number of employees we've been told will lose their job," he said.