The Oakland City Council voted 7-0 ton Tuesday to have city staff work with California Waste Solutions and Custom Alloy Scrap Sales, two West Oakland recycling companies, to sell them part of the North Gateway area of the former Oakland Army base for $11. 2 million.

Some city residents are asking whether Oakland's Redevelopment Agency of Oakland should be talking with more recyclers before closing the deal.  Local resident Jason Mahon recently posted to his blog, questioning the arrangement.  Mahon writes:

"In light of the many factors that are driving up the price of the North Gateway property, it may be suprising that the Redevelopment Agency of Oakland is proposing to enter into an exclusive negotiating agreement (ENA) with only two of the city’s recyclers, California Waste Solutions (CWS) and Custom Alloy Scrap and Sales (CASS).  Putting an ENA in place will result in a cap on the price at which the city will be able to sell this land and it will block other parties from offering higher prices to cash-strapped Oakland.

The timing is also interesting. As every Zero Waste advocate in the area knows, Oakland is about to put its garbage and recycling contracts out to bid in a process that will secure the winners a set of contracts worth $2 billion dollars over the next 20 years.  These are some of the largest contracts the city has to offer.  "

According to Mahon, " Putting an ENA in place will result in a cap on the price at which the city will be able to sell this land and it will block other parties from offering higher prices to cash-strapped Oakland.  "

What do you think? Should the city be working harder to sell this land to the highest bidder? Or is this deal good enough? Is this a deal to watch closely for wrong-doing?