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.

Second, there are questions of whether city rules and state laws were followed by the property management company Jones Lang LaSalle Americas Inc in the renovation of Jacksonville’s new City Hall annex. There are also possible improprieties when some of the bids for work associated with the renovation went to a company owned by the ex-husband of Jones Lang LaSalle general manager Karla McGraw.  Also, the first phase of the project may not have been advertised as required by law. Finally, bids were accepted from one company at least one month after a deadline it set for another company which is a violation of city competitive bidding rules.

Folks, there is a reason why we should expect competitive bidding for government contracts. Competition is a good thing and in the case of taxpayer money it assures us that we get the best bang for the buck when it comes to government services. We should stand firm against Waste Management of Florida in its attempt to bully the city of Jacksonville into giving it a lucrative contract without competitive bidding and we should expect contract bidding rules and laws to be followed to the letter by all companies receiving taxpayer money. Government officials should never forget that this is our money.