The city of Jackson’s one-year contract with Richard’s Disposal for residential garbage pickup is set to expire in March 2024.
Even though the expiration date is months away, both Virgi Lindsay, who represents Ward 7 on the Jackson City Council, and Ashby Foote, who represents Ward 1, think it’s time for city leaders to begin work on a request for proposals in order for the city to have a residential garbage contract in place when the current one expires.
“If the mayor started now, he could get it done but I’m skeptical that has happened,” Foote said. “We’re going to do what we can to make him do his job.”
Foote fears the city could end up in the same situation that occurred when the garbage contract expired on March 31, leaving residents without curbside trash pickup for two weeks. Their options were to haul off their garbage bags of household trash themselves in dumpsters at Metrocenter or at the landfill in Byram, pay one of the collection services that had popped up or let their trash pile up at their homes.
Trash pickup resumed after lawyers for the mayor and the city council agreed to a 12-month emergency contract with Richard’s Disposal that began on April 19 and continues through March 31, 2024.
Louis P. Wright Sr., chief administrative officer for the city, said there are still months left on the contract with Richard’s Disposal and city leaders have not begun the RFP process. “We’ll have to talk about it in terms of process,” he said.
In the strong mayor-council form of city government, the mayor oversees the day-to-day operations of the city and is responsible for negotiating contracts. The council is responsible for approving or disapproving contracts but does not have the authority to negotiate them, according to state law governing the strong mayor-council form of municipal government.
A new RFP is needed for the next contract because the most recent one is almost three years old, Lindsay said.
“Given market changes in both labor and fuel costs it’s unrealistic for us to ask any company to respond to an almost three-year-old RFP,” she said. “I think those are the realities. I hope the mayor will move on a new RFP soon.”
Going through the required process to put a new garbage contract in place takes time, as the city’s recent history has shown.
There was little wiggle room in the timeline for the city to put a new garbage contract in place back in 2021 when it all began. That’s what Jackson residents who attended a town hall meeting on Nov. 11, 2021 at Fondren Church learned about the RFP process.
The city’s Public Works Department issued a request for proposals for the collection and transportation of residential solid waste, yard waste and bulk waste on Oct. 21, 2021 with proposals due by Nov. 23, 2021 at 3 p.m.
The timeline showed the evaluation of proposals from Nov. 23, 2021 through Dec. 13, 2021 and oral presentations by vendors, Dec. 6-8, 2021.
The city had hoped to notify the vendor with the winning proposal by Dec. 15, 2021 and for the city council to vote on it on Jan. 4, 2022, but it didn’t go like that.
The mayor presented the council on Jan. 11 with four recommendations based on the request for proposals that was issued on Oct. 21, 2021 and amended on Nov. 18, 2021.
The council asked the mayor to consider the two recommendations that would provide garbage pickup twice a week, with and without a vendor issuing 96-gallon trash carts, and not the two recommendations for once a week service, with and without the trash cart.
There were no vendor names attached to the recommendations the council received, in keeping with how selection process is being handled.
After much drama involving the mayor and council members, the council approved a six-month contract for residential garbage collection with Waste Management. Then came the contract with Richard’s.
Foote believes the real problem is that the mayor doesn’t want the council to have a say-so in the trash contract.
He contends the mayor has spent too much time trying to disqualify the work of Ted Henefin, the third-party manager of the city’s water system, instead of concentrating on what he should be doing.
“He’s much more focused on doing stuff he’s not responsible for and not doing what he is responsible for,” he said.
