Concerned Taxpayers of Duval County board member Phil Laibe made the following comments about the April 9th City Council hearing on the proposed Trail Ridge contract. His comments are his own and do not reflect the opinions of Concerned Taxpayers of Duval County.
Although I didn’t have a chance to speak at yesterday’s meeting, I am glad I was there as I found it very informative. Most of the meeting consisted of a PowerPoint presentation given by Ebenezer Gujjarlapudi and questions being asked by City Council members of him, the city auditor and a representative of our office of General Counsel. The reason I didn’t speak is that by 5pm when I had to leave only one citizen had the chance for public comment (not counting lawyers). There will be a continuation of this hearing on April 23rd.
Some interesting things that came out at this meeting:
- Not only a garbage engineer but also the city auditor said that the idea that if another company wins the bid for servicing the landfill there will be a large V shaped area that is not used is false.
- Councilman Davis asked the Republic CEO and lawyer if they promise they can beat the negotiated contract and they say they can.
- Republic estimates that Trail Ridge is currently running at a 50% profit margin and that the negotiated contract will end-up being a 40% profit margin with the industry standard being 20% profit margin.
- A councilman (I think it was Joost but don’t quote me on that) asked the Republic representative to get into their profit margins for landfills that they run in other states.
- After being grilled by members of the City Council, the Republic representative said that it seemed like he was going through the bidding process right at the podium and the whole room laughed.
- Councilman Davis then realized that he was making himself appear to be partisan and then apologized to the Republic representatives and tried to say that this is a very important issue and he needs all the facts.
- Councilman Davis suggested that representatives from Republic be put under oath for public comment during the next meeting and asked Republic to pay the city’s legal fees if WM sues the city.
- Our fair city has tried this before and in the case of Mid American Waste systems vs. the city of Jacksonville it was decided by a court of law that the city MUST bid the contract due to state law and does not even have the right to negotiate the contract. The city’s general council disagrees with this and feels that the city does have the right to negotiate.
- The state statute that states that bidding is the rule is statute 287.001
- Waste Management is a very litigious company that has been in and still is in legal battles with the city.
- The current CEO of Republic was working for WM at the time of the signing of the 1991 contract.
- Per the garbage engineer, there is no such thing as air rights over a landfill. The city owns everything.
- All over the country, there are adjoining landfills operated by different companies (apparently due to mergers and divestitures this is somewhat common) and there have been no lawsuits.
Personally, after what I heard during this meeting, I actually hope that another company wins the bid as WM is a very litigious company. I feel that if we continue to do business with Waste Management there will be continued litigation irregardless of a contract negotiated or otherwise. I had a good time at my first media circus. There were WM employees with green T-shirts and young democrats with white bidthelandfill.org t-shirts and large banners were strung up in the adjacent park. I found it very entertaining to watch Councilman Davis and Councilwoman Lee get into an argument. At one point they went back and forth saying “I have the floor” ”no, I have the floor” multiple times. From what I understand the next meeting will be at a later time so hopefully some more of us will be able to make this meeting.
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