Waste Management, Inc. has recently fired its latest salvo over the proposed $750 million Trail Ridge landfill contract by placing an advertisement in Sunday’s Florida Times Union newspaper. It promises the taxpayers of Duval County a cost savings of $250 million over the current contract if they allow Waste Management to continue to run the landfill site. It makes other promises such as recycling, efficient solid waste disposal technology and no closure and post closure expenses for the city. Finally, it emphasizes what a great partnership the city of Jacksonville has had with Waste Management. Wow, this sounds so good that it gets one thinking that the landfill contract does not need to be competitively bidded after all!
Not so fast. It is like marrying the first girl you fall in love with. Sure, it could turn out great, but why not shop around before you take the plunge? In medical science, scientists run clinical trials to verify if a drug really can cure the disease that it claims to cure. So the drug company says that the drug reduces the symptoms of the disease by 50%. Should we immediately start using the drug? Not exactly. You first ask if there was a control group. This control group has the same disease and is similar to the group receiving the drug, but does not get the drug. If the control group also sees a reduction in the symptoms of the disease of 50%, then we know that the drug is no more effective than letting the disease takes its natural course.
What does this have to do with the proposed landfill contract? When you bid the contract, each company submitting a bid is a control group for other bidders. Sure, $250 million sounds great. But could it be matched by other waste management companies? We will never know until we bid the contract.
Also, in the advertisement, Waste Management would seem to be our friend by taking us aside and asking us if this really is a good time to risk litigation costs and permitting delays. You would think that Waste Management is doing us a favor by helping us to avoid all of those headaches. What a pal!
I guess that this is the part that perturbs me the most. Waste Management is using the carrot and stick approach. Sweeten the pot with the carrot of $250 million of cost savings, but swing around the stick of litigation at the same time. Both the city and Waste Management are pursuing risk adverse courses. Waste Management avoids litigation that they are likely to lose according to Florida Coastal School of Law professor Cleveland Ferguson and the city’s General Counsel and also avoids the possibility of losing the contract through competitive bidding. The city avoids the cost of litigation and the possibility of running out of landfill space due to possible injunctions against bidding the landfill to any other company while the litigation is taking place.
The big loser in all of this is the competitive bidding process. The bidding process not only protects the taxpayer by assuring that city services are provided in the most cost efficient manner possible. But it also ensures that government contracts are not awarded to companies that have the best connections within city government. Using fair and transparent competitive bidding avoids government corruption and ensures fairness in the awarding of government contracts. Bid the contract!
