“This just sends the wrong message if we say we want this company or that company to be the landfill. It sends a message that this is who we want, period,” Jason Rogers argued.
Steve Brown
Brown noted that the city saved more than $18,000 in landfill costs in January, the first month after the city switched from Waste Management to Sanitation Solutions on a month-to-month basis. Projected out, that would be a savings of more than $216,000 over a full year.
Waste Management’s 10-year contract expired several months ago, and the council decided to open it up for bidding because Sanitation Solutions had recently completed a new landfill three miles southeast of Blossom.
Waste Management submitted a bid of $17.75 a ton, almost 40 percent lower than the $29 a ton it was charging before Sanitation Solutions came into the picture, but Sanitation Solutions came in with an even lower bid of $17.25 a month.
Josh Bray, owner of Sanitary Solution, handed out a report showing that his company handled 91 loads of residential trash and about 750 tons of demolition material for $22,722, compared to $40,768 it would have cost the city under its old contract with Waste Management.
“If we saved $18,000, and we’ll save that same $18,000 the next month, right. And the month after that and the month after that. So why are we rushing?” Jason Rogers said.
Jason Rogers
Pickle said by using that logic, “the city could operate on a month-to-month basis for the next five years, and that’s not fair to either one of the bidders.“
“So we’re trying to do what’s best for the bidder? I thought we were trying to do what’s best for the city of Paris,” Rogers added.
“I think we’ve seen enough,” Brown said.
“In one month?” asked Rhonda Rogers.
“We are saving money, according to this paper. I will not argue with that. If we continue to save this kind of money, then they are obviously the low bidder,” she said.
“But we don’t need to be shortsighted. If we wait until after the election, if the vote is staying with the city — and I’m saying IF in capital letters — and have the city collect residential trash, then our city trucks are using a lot of that gas that (people) say is headed for five dollars a gallon.
Rhonda Rogers
Charles Richards Charles Richards moved to Paris in 2004 after retiring from a 40-year career in journalism – the last 26 years as a news writer and sports writer with The Associated Press in Dallas and Washington, D.C. In mid-2004, The Paris News coaxed him out of retirement, and he began covering the police, court and regional beat for The Paris News. Then in early 2005, he was switched to coverage of a sharply divided Paris City Council. He was appointed by the City Council in 2006 to the 12-member City Charter Review Commission, which extensively rewrote the outmoded document. His writing awards include two first-place awards in statewide competition for feature writing. The most recent was his 2005 story on a Paris doctor’s startling use of leeches in a successful attempt to re-attach a man’s severed ear. Over his career, Richards’ interview subjects include Alabama Gov. George Wallace, President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush, David Koresh, Arnold Palmer, Muhammad Ali and numerous other political and sports figures. He is an alumnus of Texas Tech, where he was editor of the school newspaper. He lives in Paris with his wife, Barbara, who is retired after 30 years as a teacher and high school counselor.
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