The legal deadlock binding Haines Sanitation with the city and borough remained solid Tuesday despite settlement talks before former Alaska Supreme Court Justice Jay Rabinowitz.

Failure to reach agreement means Haines Sanitation’s breach of contract case against the city remains scheduled for trial March 19.

Haines Sanitation filed suit last February to force the city to honor a 12-year garbage collection contract signed in l998. The city claims the contract violates city code limiting such contracts to five years, and asserts that creation of a borough solid waste service area by voters in l999 removed the city’s authority to implement the contract. The Haines Borough is named as an third party in the suit.

According to city mayor Don Otis, a pair of offers by Haines Sanitation to drop the lawsuit suit were unacceptable. Each scenario required the involvement of the borough, represented at the conference by attorney Ann Gifford.

The city rejected offers that the city and borough jointly purchase Haines Sanitation, and that the company enter separate agreements -- with the borough for financing, land transfers and a cost subsidy for customers, and the city for garbage collection and disposal services. "The city and the borough are certainly not going to buy Haines Sanitation. The borough might, but the city doesn’t have the authority."

Otis said the lack of borough representation at the conference hindered progress. Borough mayor Jerry Lapp was consulted by phone. "Every time the borough came up, their attorney would go out of the room, and explain it to Jerry, and then she’d come back and tell us what Jerry said. It was doomed from that point."

After the conference, Lapp issued a statement explaining that the borough would break off negotiations with Haines Sanitation on solid waste management issues until the suit was settled.

"In light of the refusal to release the borough (from Haines Sanitation v. City of Haines), the shortness of the time until trial, and unanswered questions about why the city continues to pursue its claims against the borough, I will recommend that the borough suspend further negotiations regarding a new waste management contract pending the outcome of the trial," Lapp wrote.

He objected to Otis’ claim that his absence held up a possible settlement. Lapp said he spoke with Gifford six times during the six-hour meeting, and gave consideration to each of Haines Sanitation’s offers. "We had plenty of representation there. We were on the phone the whole time. Some of the things that were brought up were totally ridiculous. We’re not going to be put in the position of going into contracts that aren’t good for the valley."

Haines Sanitation rejected Lapp’s suggestion to postpone the trial 60 days to allow the borough and the company to complete waste management contract negotiations. Haines Sanitation spokesman Tom Hall said he’d as soon see the court resolve the case.

"We aren’t in a position to wait any longer and we couldn’t see extending it out any more. There has to be a deadline imposed to get this done, and with a trial everybody, the city, the borough, and Haines Sanitation, will find our who’s responsible for what," Hall said.

Hall confirmed that the company was offered for sale in the conference. He wouldn’t reveal an asking price. A national waste management company’s bid to purchase the company failed recently. Hall said there’s still time to resolve the suit without going to trial.

"I look forward to ending this. Anything can happen. A settlement can be reached a day before the trial, it happens all the time. There were good options put out there (Tuesday), but we just couldn’t get three people to agree on them."

Otis said he’s confident the city would prevail over the company’s claim in court.

"What have we done wrong? We’ve done everything Haines Sanitation asked us to do, in the case of the 12-year contract against our own city code. They asked for a rate increase and we gave it to them and as a result, they lost customers and now they’re losing money.

When the borough formed its service area, it assumed that power, and now they’re saying that just because they assumed it they don’t have to exercise it….It’s in everybody’s interest to reach an agreement so Haines Sanitation stops losing money and we find a solution to this."

Lapp is scheduling an executive session before Tuesday’s borough assembly meeting to discuss the borough’s options.