The owner of Deep South Sanitation thanked the community and his family and said he didn’t understand what was going on. The Commission offered no explanation.
Cary Scarborough handed in a petition and sat down. The crowd applauded.
That rapidly turned into a standing ovation. Continue reading
Does the Commission already has reputation problems when
it’s being compared unfavorably to Lester Maddox?
A citizen canceled a business trip to ask “what if we only had one hardware store”
at last night’s
Lowndes County Commission Regular Session.
Our prices we pay would be through the roof; we would not have a choice.And you’re welcome, Duane Roark: it was LAKE who put you on YouTube last month.
He also quoted a headline from the Fayetteville Observer,
Operation Tarnished Badge: Years later, tarnish remains.
A corruption investigation that sent the Sheriff and 21 others to prison still casts a shadow over law enforcement in Robeson County.
If we put Deep South Sanitation out of business, it’s gonna give Lowndes County a black eye. People are to say, Continue reading
Only fifteen minutes on any topic, said Chairman Bill Slaughter, even though 8 people wanted to speak about trash at last night’s Lowndes County Commission Regular Session. But there is no such rule in the county’s relevant ordinance.
He was enforcing an odd mashup of the county’s 25 January 2013 ordinance about
Citizens Wishing to Be Heard.
It does have these two rules: Continue reading
At last night’s
Lowndes County Commission Regular Session,
Commissioner John Page prayed about
“the freedoms to serve in government, knowing that this government is supposed to be of the people by the people and for the people”.But the Commission seems to care more about this part he also said:
“our decisions and everything be done decently and in order”.
The county government still seems determined to take
the shirts
off these people’s backs.
Here’s the video:
Freedom or Order?
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 11 June 2013.
-jsq
Why did the Lowndes County Commission make
this exclusive franchise
with a Florida or Alabama or New York company
and then
sue a local Lowndes County company after
the VDT reported the previous spring that any contract
would be non-exclusive and wouldn’t put anybody out of business?
Here, obtained by LAKE through an open records request,
is the
contract with ADS of Middle Georgia, LLC.
The
the agenda item for the 11 December 2012 Commission meeting at which
this contract was approved
says ADS of Central Alabama, Inc.
The contract says ADS is “a Florida corporation”,
and we know ADS is owned by
Highstar Capital of New York City.
Once again,
why is granting a cheap monopoly to an out-of-state company
more important than either letting local companies compete for the service
or having the county continue to provide a public service directly to
its taxpayers and citizens?
The termination clause I pointed out to the Commission after an ADS executive made excuses for nonperformance is Paragraph 18 of the contract:
Continue readingADS proposed last December to Lincolnton, GA, to start trash collection with a rate very like what Veolia bid to Lowndes County, with increases every year after that.
The Lincoln Journal wrote 6 December 2012,
Council hears proposal to privatize garbage collection,
The Lincolnton City Council heard a proposal to privatize the municipality’s trash collection service at its regular meeting held Monday, December 3. The Lincolnton City Council heard a proposal to privatize the municipality’s trash collection service at its regular meeting held Monday, December 3.
The presentation was made by Kevin Rupinta, general manager, and Steve Edwards, area municipal marketing manager, of Advanced Disposal, the Columbia County company that also serves Lincoln County.
The written proposal stated: “Since Advanced Disposal collects garbage in Lincoln County and runs through and around the City of Lincolnton, Advanced Disposal offers the following to reduce the city’s expenses:
(1) Purchase the city’s garbage trucks at an agreed upon fair market value.
(2) Purchase the city’s carts at an agreed upon fair market value.
(3) Provide garbage service for the city at rates that mirror those charged to the county.”
The rates quoted were:
Continue reading
Speaking of Veolia winning its high bid for garbage collection, here’s a clue to how much more its rates may go up.
Remember
ADS Veolia was bought hardly a month later by ADS, owned by Highstar Capital
of New York City?
Look at ADS’s bid for Proposal D: $18.39.
That’s $220.68 a year. Which is even higher than Wakulla County, Florida’s $196 a year, which Gretchen warned us all about more than a year ago. And more than double the $100 a year for the former county waste collection sites.
Want to guess how much ADS’s monthly rates will rise? Maybe Continue reading
The facts don’t match County Chairman Bill Slaughter’s assertion
(according to the VDT Thursday):
That decision was made in a good-faith effort to find the lowest possible rate for garbage service for the citizens of Lowndes County, he said Tuesday.
Commissioner Richard Raines moved and the Commission voted to approve 9 October 2012 Proposal D and awarded it to the lowest bidder for that specific proposal, which was Veolia. But that wasn’t the lowest-priced proposal, according to the sheet of choices they were using in that meeting:
Continue readingFormer Chairman Ashley Paulk may say he didn’t tell Cory Scarborough of Deep South Sanitation that any contract by the county for curbside pickup would be non-exclusive (VDT 30 May 2013), but David Rodock reported for the VDT from Ashley Paulk’s guest house at a Lowndes County Commission retreat chaired by Ashley Paulk that:
Commissioners decided that getting out of the “trash business” was best and that a non-exclusive agreement with current curbside pickup companies (which about 12,000 citizens already employ) would provide service without putting any people out of business.
The VDT reported
(
Commission tackles key issues:
Waste management, tax lighting districts and SPLOST discussed at retreat
by David Rodock, 31 March 2012)
Commissioners “decided”.
Yet there is no vote recorded, in contravention to Georgia open meetings law
and a recent
Georgia Supreme Court decision.
How is this doing
“the people’s business”?
Maybe if they took a vote and recorded it properly we’d all know what they said.
-jsq
The VDT should dig deeper into the finances of Lowndes County trash collection.
Nobody has ever seen an accounting of where where the money went for
the county’s former waste collection sites, so nobody knows whether
the county was really losing money or how much, and the county’s
version of how those sites had to be paid for doesn’t match state law..
Sure, Bill Slaughter defending a decision made when Ashley Paulk was chair
is amusing, but instead of transcribing what county officials tell it,
the VDT could find lots more under the county’s garbage with a little digging.
Jason Schaefer write for the VDT Thursday, Concerns continue over garbage agreement: Business owner argues case against County
The County is not required under Georgia law to issue RFPs to any company for waste disposal services, according to Slaughter. That decision was made in a good-faith effort to find the lowest possible rate for garbage service for the citizens of Lowndes County, he said Tuesday.
Is that the point of county government, to act like Wal-Mart?
Is money the only value the county government can name?
Everyone I talked to about the trash issue in 2012 who already
had a waste collection card said they’d be willing to pay more
to keep the sites open.
Maybe if the county had held public hearings they would have learned that.
And does anyone believe ADS’s rates are going to stay that low? Look at Wakulla, Florida, where it’s $196/year. But the bigger question is why did the county privatize trash collection anyway?
Continue reading