(Update: On Monday, March 23, the Edmond City Council approved a one-year extension of its contract with the Edmond Transfer Station. The following article remains in its original form.)
A two-year contract extension for the private Edmond Transfer Station to continue its intermediary trash disposal service appears on Monday night’s Edmond City Council’s agenda under general consent, positioning it to be voted on without presentation from staff or public comment.
The council could discuss the item if a member chooses to designate it for deliberation, which might prove lengthy given the extensive history and controversial nature of the agreement.
Since 2007, the City of Edmond has paid ETS Enterprises LP to haul residents’ trash to its Edmond Transfer Station in northeast Edmond. ETS Enterprises then contracts with Waste Management Solutions to haul the trash back south to a permanent landfill. For years, some city leaders have promoted the idea of spending reserve funds to buy the Edmond Transfer Station and save money longterm by ending the contract.
In late 2021, when the city’s ETS contract was coming up for a five-year renewal, a tense meeting between city staff and a member of ETS Enterprises’ ownership boiled over publicly in a manner that still simmers behind the scenes of Monday night’s upcoming agenda item.
At the time, city staff formally recommended that Edmond purchase the station outright, and assistant director of public works Bobby Masterson alleged that Clay Coldiron, an owner of ETS Enterprises, threatened him and his colleagues professionally and politically.
Bolstered by handwritten notes, the saga of that September 2021 meeting was documented by Fox 25’s Wendy Suares through a pair of stories in 2022 and 2023 — months after the Edmond City Council had voted to extend the ETS contract by five years. City staff documented their meeting with Coldiron, saying his “behavior was intimidating, controlling and bullish in both tone and behavior.”
“ETS has a lot of political leverage,” one of the notes read. “ETS will use all of their leverage fully.”
Despite being made aware of Coldiron’s threats toward city staff, council members voted 4-1 in February 2022 to renew the city’s contract with ETS Enterprises — with increased costs — until 2027. Then-Mayor Darrell Davis was the only council member to vote against the contract renewal, although he said through a spokesman that his vote constituted his only comment on the matter.
For his part, Coldiron told Fox 25 he didn’t have “any recollection” of making any remarks that could be considered threatening of city staff.
Asked Friday about the tumultuous 2021-2022 contract renegotiation effort, Coldiron emphasized the success seen at the Edmond Transfer Station in the four-plus years since its renewed agreement.
“We had a tough negotiation five years ago when we were attempting to renew the contract, but we’ve had no complaints, no issues since,” Coldiron said. “We’re really proud of our record in terms of performance — no complaints, executing every day and getting the trash hauled to the landfill and keeping the solid waste trucks running, and everybody seems to be happy.”
The two-year extension proposed for Monday’s meeting comes at the request of new Edmond city manager A.J. Krieger, Coldiron said.
“It works for the city,” Coldiron said. “And you know, we understand the staff has different ideas about what they want to do, but the council’s always seen that it’s in the best interest of the city to renew the agreement, so that’s what we hope to (see) happen again.”
City spokesman Bill Begley said Krieger’s decision to move forward with a two-year extension in the first quarter of 2026 — with nearly a full year remaining on the contract — partially stems from Krieger being “a new city manager” who is “just getting the lay of the land here.”
“He’s got the I-35 development going on. He’s getting his first budget worked through. He’s got negotiations with police and fire upcoming. He wanted to take some time to really take a look at this. He’s aware of the history, and so he didn’t want to rush through it,” Begley said. “The idea was to get it on the agenda, get it addressed for right now so that he could take a harder look at it for the future. It was an executive decision on his part.”
Masterson, the assistant director of public works whose handwritten notes documented the meeting with Coldiron, declined to comment Friday on the pending contract extension. But asked in June 2024 about the September 2021 incident, Masterson affirmed that Coldiron threatened staff members “professionally” and “politically.”
“(We were) absolutely, unequivocally threatened,” Masterson said. “So I put it this way: I’ll stand behind every one of the emails that were there and listed in that investigation with Fox 25 News.”
The rates and reserves
Just north of Covell Road and east of Interstate 35, the twisted road that leads to the Edmond Transfer Station bears a sign proclaiming that residents save money through the arrangement.
Edmond Transfer Station history
The Edmond Transfer Station was constructed in 2002 by Progressive Development, which sold the facility in 2005 to ETS Enterprises, which was led by Derek Turner of Turner & Company.
Clay Coldiron served as Edmond’s public works director from Jan. 18, 2000, until Sept. 26, 2007, when he accepted a job at Turner & Company. Turner signed the transfer station contract renewal agreement with the Edmond Public Works Authority on Nov. 12, 2007 — just seven weeks after Coldiron joined Turner & Company from his EPWA post.
At an October 2007 meeting, the Edmond Public Works Committee recommended the city council approve the agreement with ETS Enterprises by a 2-1 vote. Councilwoman Elizabeth Waner and Councilman David Miller recommended renewal, while at-large member Roland Dawson voted against the recommendation.
According to the minutes from that Oct. 24, 2007, meeting, Dawson voiced his frustration with the “escalated contract,” which included a fixed-price option for EPWA to purchase the transfer station if the parties were unable to come to a renewal.
Dawson questioned why the city contracts with ETS Enterprises, which then outsources operations and transportation of solid waste to Waste Management Solutions, instead of purchasing the facility and contracting directly with WMS.
On Friday, a faint smell of waste permeated the air. But despite tons of trash traveling into and out of the facility, its smell somehow seemed less pungent than a residential dumpster in June.
In addition to receiving loads from trash trucks that clear Edmond neighborhoods, the transfer station also accepts waste directly from residents and surrounding community members.
A daily user of the station, contractor Danny Kunesman, said Friday that the facility is a “life saver” owing to the amount of time it saves him in transit.
“It’s a well run operation,” Coldiron said. “That’s the secret to it. We know what we’re doing.”
If council members approve the two-year contract extension Monday night, discussions about whether Edmond should bring the transfer station in-house will be disposed of — for now.
The city’s possible purchase of the station has been debated for decades, and if a contract extension is not approved by January 2027, the city is contractually obligated to purchase the station for about $7.34 million.
With Edmond facing a budget crunch a largely new council focused on digging into city finances, such a purchase would come from Edmond’s solid waste reserve account, which stands at about $11 million. However, $2 million from the fund has been allocated to the yet-to-be-claimed $10 million loan for the Uncommon Ground Sculpture Park.
Asked about the impact of the agreement with the Uncommon Ground Sculpture Park on the solid waste reserve fund, Masterson said in June 2024 that it concerns him.
“We originally asked for $17 million in total reserve funding and we were a little over $11 million and they went ahead and took $2 million,” Masterson said. “And then tonight (June 10, 2024) I had to come get $350,000 to make my budget this year for maintenance. So it’s just going to speed up a rate increase at some point.”
A rate study in 2025 projected that Edmond’s solid waste department would dip into deficit spending of roughly $4 million over a five-year period, which prompted discussions of a possible rate increase.
At an April 2025 budget meeting, Masterson said expenses were projected at roughly $12.56 million, while revenue was expected to be $12.5 million, leaving a $19,026 deficit which would require some expenditure from the $11 million reserve fund.
The rate study was conducted by Raftelis Financial Consultants, a municipal government consulting firm based in Charlotte, North Carolina, with multiple offices across the United States.
Thierry Boveri, a Raftelis vice president, presented the group’s findings to the Edmond City Council.
Boveri’s analysis presented a possibility for a 3.5 percent increase in cost per year. To account for emergencies like storms, he recommended the city maintain enough reserve funds to account for 120 days of operating expenses. To meet this recommendation, the reserve fund would need to reach $16 million or $17 million. Those estimates were conservative, Bonveri said.
Boveri presented the option to the council of terminating the agreement with ETS and purchasing the station. The choice to do so would cost around $8 million, but the anticipated annual savings would land between $567,000 and $917,000 annually, Boveri said. The analysis included maintenance costs for city trucks driving waste 14 miles to the East Oak landfill along Northeast 36th Street east of Sooner Road in Oklahoma City.
Councilmembers at the time asked questions about cost, though the final decision is in the hands of the members now.
(Editor’s note: Michael McNutt and Joe Tomlinson contributed reporting to this story.)
