I have been following this for a couple of years now. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

The Washington Supreme Court has agreed to review a case involving the city of Seattle's exclusive contracts for collection of construction, demolition and land-clearing waste, lawyers for independent haulers said Thursday.

The lawyers are hoping to overturn a 2005 decision by the Washington State Court of Appeals, which concluded that the city could hire specific companies to collect construction debris without a public bidding process.

The dispute began in 2001, when the city hired Rabanco and Waste Management, which already collected residential garbage, to handle commercial garbage from stores, businesses and apartments. Small haulers, such as Joe Ventenbergs' Seattle-based Kendall Trucking, wanted to compete for construction-debris collection. Ventenbergs and contractor Ron Haider sued after the city passed an ordinance in 2002 that effectively excluded small haulers from that market.