Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said he will issue a request for proposals for garbage collection in the city.
The garbage collection contract has been a hot-button issue for the mayor and city council and has led to court battles and Jackson residents going without pickup for several days.
Last week, the Jackson City Council voted in a special meeting to issue an RFP for trash pickup for next year.
“The council can’t issue an RFP. Every court has told them that,” Lumumba said during a news conference Thursday. “That’s irrelevant because we’re choosing to do it. It’s the best path forward.”
Lumumba said he met with Council President Aaron Banks before he left for a 12-day trip to China with other mayors and U.S. leaders.
Lumumba said he and the council had agreed during private negotiations to what the mayor said was a two-year contract with Richard’s Disposal, and in exchange, the company would drop its lawsuit against the city.
The mayor said the council voted on the RFP while he was in China.
“We don’t want our residents to have interruption in their trash service. Before I left, the majority of the council had agreed to negotiations,” Lumumba said.
The council approved an emergency contract in April that allowed Richard’s Disposal to resume trash collection in the city. The contract is for one year.
“We’re in litigation. If the court were to rule against the city, one of the potential consequences of that is to pay that contract to that vendor. What that could mean to residents is No. 1, pay the cost to the vendor and to Richard’s if they were to win the lawsuit,” Lumumba said.
The mayor said residents could pay double or triple what they’re used to paying for trash collection, in addition to water rates, which Lumumba said are going to go up.
“The bottom line is that residents are going to pay more due to inflation and other factors in the market. And that was what we were trying to avoid,” Lumumba said. “We were getting an excellent rate.”
In a statement issued after the mayor’s news conference, the Jackson City Council applauded Lumumba for issuing a new RFP.
“We have been working proactively on this complex issue for weeks,” the statement said. “Previously, the only option before the city council was to extend the contract of his recommendation. The contract that the mayor is referring to was issued as a solution during the state of emergency created when garbage service stopped. The city is no longer under this state of emergency and that contract expires March 31, 2024. After further discussion and requests for clarity from the attorney general and the state auditor, the city council voted unanimously to request that the mayor issue a new RFP. This process has been dragging on far too long. We are here to do our job and be good stewards of the taxpayers’ money.”
Lumumba said the RFP will be done on or before Nov. 21. He couldn’t list the requirements because it hasn’t been issued yet, but the mayor said it would be easy and streamlined.
Source : wapt.com
