New garbage contract would increase monthly fees 73%
The City Council is meeting right now. Watch it live on the City Council website. Posted below are some quick notes jotted down while watching.
The cost is $16.90 per customer, $1.40 less than the current rate. However, the cost does not include operation costs.
FCC will pick up garbage only once a week using automated trucks.
The house count is 53,869.
The total amount of the contract is $17,698,000 million.
Rates will shoot up from $20 per month to $35 per month. Mayor Lumumba says the rate is going to increase regardless of the vendor. He said $5 million in Siemens settlement funds were used to pay "sanitation costs." Sanitation has been running at a shortfall for over five years.
The deficit was $500,000 short in 2016. The deficit was $1.6 million last year.
Mr. Foote points out the increase will be 73%. Councilman Aaron Banks says the $35 per month fee is a "floor". The increase could be even higher. The rate of collections is only 58%. He said such a steep fee increase isn't justified when the city isn't collecting.
The rates have not been raised for 12 years.
FCC will have only 83 positions available for Waste Management employees. Whole lotta hoppers going to be losing jobs.
Here we go again. Ward 5 Councilman Vernon Hartley asked Mayor Lumumba if he surveyed his constituents about the fee increase. The Mayor didn't take kindly to the question and immediately raised his voice as he fire back at Mr. Hartley. The former military man didn't back down but asked why public hearings were not held. City Council President Virgi Lindsay attempted to shut him down. The Mayor asked Mr. Hartley "what hearing have YOU had?" Well, Mr. Mayor, its kind of hard to have hearings when meetings are held with little notice and the council is not allowed to see anything before a vote.
Ms. Lindsay recommended recessing until tomorrow afternoon so they could study the contract. Mr. Banks disagreed as he wanted to go ahead and vote. Mr. Hartley wanted to vote today as well. Councilwoman Angelique Lee seconded Ms. Lindsay's move bu Mr. Stokes called the question.
The City Council rejected the contract on a 4-3 vote. Councilmen Foote, Banks, Hartley, Stokes voted against it. Councilwomen Lindsay and Lee as well as Councilman Grizzell voted to approve it.
The motion to recess failed, supported by only Ms. Lee, Mr. Grizzell, and Ms. Lindsay. Mr. Foote abstained.
Update: Watch for yourself. The corporate presentations end around 30:00.
Kingfish note: This is what happens when you tell people for years that services will not be terminated for non-payment of bills. Revenue disappears. Shocker. The Mayor cut off the cut offs and saw a $500,000 deficit increase more than 400% during his tenure.
55 comments:
What is an automated truck? It must be mighty expensive.
Before Covid there was a Town Hall held and it was talked about. Sorry you don’t come to West Jackson.
3:17 - Pretty sure it means if you can't fit your weeks worth of trash in the bin they provide you're screwed.
Maybe we'll all get solar-powered garbage cans.
Kenny actually came to a special meeting? Interesting.
If you still live in Jackson at this point, do you have any right to complain? Like gorging at Western Sizzler for hours and then declaring the food's gross.
There goes another 5,000 people.
"The deficit was $500,000 short in 2016. The deficit was $1.6 million last year. He said the rate of collections is only 58%. He said such a steep fee increase isn't justified when the city isn't collecting.
The rates have not been raised for 12 years."
Asleep at the wheel doesn't even come close to describing Jackson.
The Mayors recommended vendor and cost increase failed.
Is there anything Lindsay doesn't go along with the Mayor on?
Why is Lyin Lumumba such a pompous a**Hole?
several kickbacks down the drain-
Good guys won once for a change?
Virgi, does he have incriminating pictures?
@3:17 - automated trucks use an arm to pic up your can. This reduces employees as well as the possibility of employee issues. However, you have to have their can which generally means you can't put multiple cans or crap on the ground.
Perception of garbage cost increase
Seems Lumumba might have some serious leverage over "Virgi".
Just a personal observation, nothing more.
(Kind of like the Nevada Senator supporting
Michael Corleone in the Godfather II film).
3:17.....damn some of you need to get outside of your little redneck town. An automated truck pulls up and an arm comes out andgrabs your can and takes it up and over the top of the trash truck. No human involved other than driving the truck.
Damn, this means no "coordinating trips" to Europe flying first class and staying at 5-star hotels. No wonder King Chowke is pissed, besides the palm grease dissolvin before his eyes.
Those photos of Virgi playing "shepherd" will have to be used at a later date.
City could pay for this increase in collection fees by (1) of course, collecting the past due charges from the 42% that aren't paying, but in the alternative, since they are now planning on writing off those uncollected bills they could (2) sell the landfill.
The city's garbage hasn't been going to the landfill for years. And there seems to be a demand for a new landfill, based on the fight in Madison County. And landfills are valuable properties - lets turn this asset into cash.
wow. city council starting to push back?
like i’m saying these days-stokes would be a better mayor. well, just about anyone would be a better mayor though.
Funny how many cans his honor kicked down the road until after his landslide election. Between the water system Fandango and other revelations we’ve seen since, I question his electability at the moment. Notice how Lamumbalot becomes dismissive or flat out angry in response to pertinent questions nowadays.
Very proud of Councilmen Foote, Banks, Hartley, and Stokes who voted against it. The support of this horror story of a proposal by Councilwomen Lindsay and Lee says a lot and all of it negative.
Lumumba is going to soak Jackson ratepayers and the few actual taxpayers remaining in the city too. WLBT reporting he's going after yet another property tax increase.
At least FCC Environmental Services had a professional website with lots of information. That's more than you can say for the Mayors most recent push - Oceanarium. That website had NO INFORMATION.
What the Mayor also doesn't tell you is that the reason the city is running a garbage income deficit is because the water bill also includes garbage pickup fees. How many bills are "stranded" and not being billed and collected? A boatload.
Maybe the mayor should get his ass in one of those little meter reader pickup trucks and help out by reading some meters? It's not like he's doing much else....
What difference does it make who picks up the garage?
Jackson IS garbage.
Glad to know that Stokes stands up for those who actually pick up the boo boo.
I live in a city where you contract with a sanitation company or your HOA does. I pay $48 FOR THREE MONTHS of garbage once a week and recycling is picked up bi-weekly.
Y'all getting screwed by this town. Water, sewer, sanitation, increased auto repair costs, and a declining tax base is no way to live.
I would relish KF's insight for Virgi Lindsay's support of this impudent adolescent mayor child.
Virgi Lindsay's husband is an accomplished CPA executive who is a partner in a well established, prestigious Accounting firm. Surely Mr. Lindsay's economic wisdom would counter his wife's support of an incompetent, marxist radical with dreams of some Fischer-Price modeled New Africa apartheid playground?
Does Virgi Lindsay fashion herself a potential mayoral candidate who can use political fealty to earn access to Lumumba's financial and voter support, fickle and hollow as may be, when Lumumba seeks Bennie's eventually retired seat in Congress?
KF is the big fish in this murky ocean who can determine a more realistic political explanation for Virgi Lindsay's nutty behavior.
@3:17 pm Aug 9:
The automated trucks mean all of your week of garbage must fit in that one large blue container, very similar to large blue containers with casters seen around Jackson.
The collection truck has a hydraulic arm with opposing grabbers which grasp and lift the container above the truck's open top for gravity emptying, then set it back down where it picked it up.
I have personally seen this system in action in Alabama. It "works" with the caveat that one's garbage cannot be boxes or neatly stacked limbs or additional bagged yard detritus.
And it stinks, the whole street reeks of rancid garbage on pick up day, before and during trash collection.
"FCC". That's catchy. Maybe Chowke should have contacted "TSA"....
Tecumseh Sherman and Associates. They've "done business with the City of Jackson" in the past. I think it was back in '64.
MICE DIE IN MOUSETRAPS BECAUSE THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY THE CHEESE IS FREE.
Any idea what the average rate of collections and whether they would have needed to raise rates if they were in line with the average?
“ Y'all getting screwed by this town. Water, sewer, sanitation, increased auto repair costs, and a declining tax base is no way to live.
August 9, 2021 at 6:24 PM”
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I disagree. The voters want this. They just rejected the mayor. It’s just a perception of being screwed over.
The council messed up from the get go. They are either incompetent or complicit in this. They should have never allowed the non payment of the water bills as the garbage collection is part of that invoice. To be clear, that invoice is not just a WATER BILL but also a GARBAGE BILL too. One affects the other. Thumbs up to the morons on the council for splaining this to the masses.
Lumumba is going to soak Jackson ratepayers and the few actual taxpayers remaining in the city too. WLBT reporting he's going after yet another property tax increase.
Which means +8 or +9 mils for the dupes in Belhaven!
Jackson should buy some garbage trucks and run the pickups with prisoners.
Hold on, spud. The Mayor unilaterally stopped cutoffs in May last year. Council never approved it.
Now the previous moratoriums, I think some were approved by council but I could be wrong.
Virgi was adamant about pushing the vote till tomorrow because she had not had time to review the contract. Not 5 minutes later she voted for the contract.
How does Virgi get re-elected? Is Virgi Lumumba that popular in Belhaven?
It was several years ago, but several council members were calling for Mayor Yarber to stop the cutoffs until the mess could be sorted out. Lots of folks were either completely without water or were resorting to water theft.
I've witnessed the transition to automated trash pickup in a somewhat progressive, yet extremely conservative Mississippi county. It has progressed very smoothly. I think the catch here is that the local taxpayers are all on board and pay their monthly fees for garbage pickup, simply because it makes sense to pay an operation to rid yourself of the trash that your household generates.
Anybody see the obvious problem with Jackson and their utilities? Municipal services are revenue based, like any business operation that operates based on revenue, expenses and services provided.
If the municipality can't operate in an effective manner, and are historically a black hole that operate in the red year after year, and fail to collect fees for services provided, whether it be water, sewerage, or garbage collection, you've got a failed municipality. Period.
This is the legacy of Chokwe, and it's forevermore documented as his failure as "mayor."
True or False:
1)Payment for garbage pickup and water in Jackson is entirely optional.
2)Having your vehicle legally tagged in Jackson is entirely optional.
3)Paying parking fines (if your vehicle is tagged HINDS) is optional.
4)I-220 is considered America's Autobahn.
5)Jackson is a great place for industrial development.
This is an automated truck.
https://youtu.be/9xqvKgtg9a0
Ashby Foote, check your math.
Currently: $20.20 a month = $2.52 per collection (avg 8 collections/month)
Proposed: $35 a month = $8.75 per collection (avg 4 collections/month)
Pay attention Jackson. Per collection, Lumumba wants to jack up your garbage rates by +247%. The math is irrefutable.
With all of Baby Chowke's keen business acumen developed through years of experience in the private sector managing both small and large businesses he should be able to make Jackson's utilities very profitable. /sarcasm mode off/
Since a RFP was issued, was there more than one bid submitted? Did the current contractor, Waste Management, submit a bid? If there was more than one bid, how do the two compare price-wise? Why change contractors? Were there major problems with Waste Management? Lots of unanswered questions here, poor messaging on the mayor's part.
6:24 - LOL!!!!!! Dayum!.
@6:24 AM - Ha! Jacktown and Chowke are dumpster fires.
KF, you "should" be able to FOIA the bid proposals. However, this is Jackson and you probably "can't".
Rankin county does not have a problem with collecting garbage fees. You cannot get a tag for your car without getting the OK from your garbage collector. I usually wait for the garbage collector to come by to pick up my garbage and get a permission slip from him so I can get my car tags.
In Madison (Waste Management - same company) we pay our garbage collection fee with our water bill. If we don't pay our bill, our water is cut off. Can't Jackson do tha.....wait. Sorry. I'll see myself out.
@11:02 AM Not only that, if you don't pay your quarterly garbage fee ($200.00 a year) Rankin County will legally put a lien on your property therefor you will have to pay them sooner or later. Also, in Rankin County, Entergy will not connect power to your house until the house in permitted, inspected and approved by Rankin County Inspectors. The "approval" is most often accompanied by a list or repairs said inspector deems necessary. Only after all of that will Rankin county will released the hold on your power application and authorize Entergy to proceed with your order. PRVWD requires rental property owners to sign something where you agree to pay any unpaid water bills pertaining to your house before they will allow service to be turned on again for a new tenant.
Curious if FCC's $5k political contribution to Antar had anything to do with this.
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