Recently, there has been a lot in the news about competitive bidding for government contracts in Jacksonville. First, the city is considering awarding a landfill operations agreement with Trail Ridge Landfill, a subsidiary of Waste Management of Florida, without competitive bidding. Waste Management of Florida is using the the carrot and stick approach of lowering the base costs of its landfill services along with an intimidating lawsuit threat to force the city to give it a 40 year contract for about three quarters of a billion dollars without looking at other companies.

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Accusations of special treatment provided to U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown and City Councilwoman Denise Lee have embarrassed the Peyton administration once again.  According to a recent Florida Times Union article, it only took a phone call from Brown’s area director to start the ball rolling on the delivery of sandbags to Brown’s house to protect it from flooding.  Apparently, this assistance was not provided to anyone else in her neighborhood. Lee did not even have to ask for help when city trucks also showed up to her house with sandbags.  It was not until her neighbors complained that the sandbags were removed from her property.

We have to ask if this is standard operating procedure for all houses threatened by rising water or do you need to hold the purse strings to the federal and city money that finances city operations to get this kind of response from the city?  Mayor Peyton seemed oblivious to the implications of the city Public Works Office’s actions when he said that he was “delighted our public works employees were able to help save these homes”.

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