A comment was posted last Thursday in the trash talk post that deserved its own space. The Mayor keeps bleating Richard's Disposal has the lowest cost. Well, not so fast my friend. Bids are judged on scores, not cost and there are good reasons for such practices. Ever heard of low-ballin'? A reader wrote:
Once the 96 gallon carts were omitted, Richards was no longer the lowest and best bid; at that point, WM score was the best.
This was not a request for quotations, but a request for proposals. As such, the entire response is evaluated with price being one of several factors evaluated and rated.
Richards had the highest score on the twice a week with carts response. WM had the highest score on the twice a week without carts. The Mayor has not been able to get around that hurdle, even though the evaluation team that did the ratings were all appointees of his administration.
He presented the Richards' proposal for 2x with; and it was turned down. He cannot present the Richards' proposal for 2x without, because he cannot present it as being the best response. And he refuses to present another option. He got around this dilema for a year by awarding the contract under his so-called "emergency". (Must be neat to be able to create one's on emergency; lets you get around state procurement laws by refusing to do anything timely. )
Mayor's only option offered today is the 2x with carts; ergo Richards. The Council has said they do not want carts; ergo they will not approve the Mayor's proposed contract.
Ball bounces back to the Mayor's court - and his only option is to propose a 2x without carts under the old RFP and enter into negotiations with WM - something he is loath to do.
And - little said, with Richards 'agreeing' to honor their earlier response, and despite all the Mayors jabbering about inflation, rise of fuel, etc - the RFP provided for a CPI price adjustment yearly, so his favored partner would not be suffering as suggested but would receive a hefty increase in price. Just as WM or any other vendor would, of course, and entitled to do. But Mayor Jabberwokky wants to hide that detail in his 'transparent' campaign about the cost of the contracts.
Unfortunately, the City Council allowed the Mayor to control the narrative as he shrieks about cost while score is never mentioned. The media goes along with it as it rarely questions the Mayor on anything. As for the scores, here they are:
As stated above, Waste Management had the best score for the twice per week cartless service. However, Mayor Lumumba rarely mentions cartless service as he is dead set on ramming his precious 96-gallon carts down everyone's throats and that, my friends, is the bottom line.
32 comments:
And you can take it to the bank that whoever is rewarded the cart contract will be a friend of the mayor and he will profit off of the contract.
The mayor is the gatekeeper who decides major issues for the city. If you don't approve either try to vote him out of office or move. It's that simple.
It’s about juggling the interests of organized crime. Debts are owed and they will be paid either in cash or in blood.
When I first moved to Cary NC the city trash haulers would walk to the back yard and fetch your trash bins, wheel them to the street and return them when emptied. Fifteen years later the city provided all residents with a large barrel designed to be engaged and lifted by the trucks themselves and not a multi-man crew. Crews were reduced to half their size, residents however now had to wheel their own carts to the street and back.
A large number of major metropolitan areas use this technique because it saves money. Why folks are so caught up in whether they buy their bins or they are given to them is puzzling. Nonetheless it does perhaps explain why Mississippi is last or nearly so in every measure of quality of life.
I said Richards would get the contract last year.
What Baby wants, Baby gets. Nobody is going to stop Chuck and he fears nothing.
It makes me endlessly pleased with my decision to leave NE Jxn.
An independent media is necessary to ensure accountability in government. In Jackson there are neither.
Help me out here. How can garbage be picked up 'without carts'? How the hell many shovels you gonna use?
(PS: I live in the woods northeast of Pelahatchie, and we toss our garbage off down the creek-bank.)
Great research and reporting. I suspect that not one Jackson resident reader of this great blog will contact his respective council member and shove these facts down his throat.
Richard's Disposal is very inconsistent. They may come first thing in the morning, or after dark, or not at all. They didn't come the Monday after Christmas or the Monday after New Years so on the following Thursday they were not able to get everything. This resulted in garbage sitting out until the following Monday. Waste management picked up my trash first thing in the morning EVERY Monday (except MLK Day) and Thursday. Richard's is clearly inferior to Waste Management. The only way this whole situation makes sense is if someone got paid.
8:41 no, that's not how a city council form of government works.
841 - no, the Mayor is the head of the Executive branch. His job is to execute the actions - not decide them
The council is the legislative branch, and sets the budgets and approves the expenditures.
Yes, if you don't like the results - of either - then vote them out.
But we did not elect the Mayor to be a dictator- someone who as you say decides and executes, in whatever manner he chooses.
As an executor,he has failed in most every function: safety, infrastructure, including roads, bridges, water and sewer; public facilities - libraries and zoo are good examples; and overall management - starting with financial accounting.
Thank the Good Lord he is not what you say (and he believes) he is, that being the sole decider of all actions.
There are many good comments on JJ once you weed through the malcontents, trolls, pot heads and rantings from Granny Osteoporosis.
If you add the palm greasing money to the amount of the Richards contract it might be surprising!
Me thinks this is more about Lumumba's massive ego, inferiority complex and extreme animus for WM than it is about a hankering desire on his part to deploy a common cart across the city.
Uh, no 8:41. The Mayor is the executive who manages the daily administration of the city. The City Council is supposed to decide major issues for the city. Something about separation of powers that was mentioned in civics class.
8:51, I don't see this as a debate over trash bins.
I see this as a demand that a Mayor follow the rule of RFP and City Council.
But I know Lamumba's supporters want to harp on "Richards is doing fine so everyone shut up" but the fact remains that he forcefully installed a shady vendor that did not win the RFP. That is what the issue is.
Not trash bins.
@8:41am
Despite the mad marxist mayor's and your assertions to the contrary, he has, by his abject shirking of honor and civic duty, ceded power and authority to the State, the Feds, MS Supremes, even humiliated his whole administration before the City's own auditing firm.
The little man is castrating himself and has nothing to boast of beyond his skin shade. Yet his obsessive lies and obfuscations are legend and perpetual.
This is not a "gatekeeper", he is a self ruined wastrel and charlatan. His only power is to waylay Jackson into one catastrophe after another.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe it was stated when the Mayor awarded the one-year emergency contract to Richards for twice per week no cart service, I believe it was stated that Richards would match Waste Management's RFP price for that service. That lead me to believe that Richard's price for this service was actually higher than Waste Management's. This would help explain their lower score. I think it would also help to understand why Richard's has now carefully stated that they can offer their RFP price going forward. Notice they did not say they could offer the cost they are currently providing (matching Waste Management's price). Please let me know if I am mistaken.
It seems like just a few people understand politics. Most of the people are working people. The better they are at their job the more they benefit. That was the way it was in the past. Politics was left to the crooks. I am not saying they were more crooked than todays politician but we knew they were crooks and they knew they were crooks. They tried their best to try to not act like crooks. Todays politicians are completely different. We still know they are crooks but they think they are not crooks. They want people to think of them as saviors. They know what is best for us and do everything with our best interest in heart. They actually think they are a better class of people who should be treated like it. The fact that they have a different set of laws should give the people an idea. The politicians made the laws.
We need more old fashion crooks as politicians.
I need to be set straight here.
Did I read at one point where the major's sister was a major stockholder in the company that would be contracted to sell the trash carts for the Richard's proposal?
Am I wrong here? Seems to me giving her company the cart money would be a perfect example of "trickle down economy" Trickling some of the cart money down into the Mayor's pocket.
10:26, ok, since you asked - we will correct you.
1) There was not an option to do what you say you understood; following the responses to the RFP, a company doesn't have the option to "match" the other vendors. That would be bid shopping - granted, something not beyond this administration's thought process, and the fact it would be illegal doesn't seem to be something that would stop them either.
But, more importantly, 2) the agreement made in Hinds County Chancery Court was that the Council would approve the one year emergency contract, allowing the city to (legally) pay Richards for the work being done - but with the caveat that once the Supreme Court ruled, if it was against the Mayor (as everyone with a brain knew it would be) then Richards' contract would expire at the end of that month. AND, the Mayor would be required to bring a contract proposal to the City Council from the RFP process that would have to pass a majority vote of the Council.
Now the Mayor is refusing to bring a proposed contract from the RFP except for Richards', which has already been turned down twice by the Council - that is, Richards' proposal for twice a week WITH carts. Because the Council will not vote to approve that contract, the Mayor is required by the Court agreement to bring the other option, which is WM - who had the highest score for twice weekly without carts. But the Mayor in his infinite wisdom - or lack thereof - refuses to do that, even though he agreed to it in the settlement agreement.
But after all, 8:41 says he has all the decision making authority and the Council (or the Courts in this instance) have nothing to do with it. Sounds like Dr. Omari dictated the comment at 8:41, cause that sho' is her opinion of the office she commands.
I feel like the only way to speed along this BS is for someone to find the paper trail back to Richard’s showing how much they paid or are offering to pay the Mayor under the table for this contract. It’s quite obvious the reason he is fighting this so hard is there’s a payoff involved for him. No other explanation for this. Someone needs to look for $250k mysteriously appearing in his bank account, or him buying a house, car, or land at a price that couldn’t be supported by his salary.
@8:51... The Mayor and Richards have no intention to automatically pick up the large cans with the arm/dumper. This would not employ as many people, as you noticed in Cary, Da mayor wants to protect his constituencies jobs, being ones he could have influence over. It's also likely Richards will require all trash to be bagged b/c it's very hard to lift those big cans even when partially full.
Tagging on to 10:26. The rate Richard's has been getting paid on the emergency contract is ~$150k (I think they are getting $800k/month, but couldn't find exact amount from quick search) more per month that what they proposed in the RFP for 2x week no cart. While WM won that scenario, it wasn't because they were cheaper. Richards proposed $652,500/month, WM proposed $858,060. So not only did the Mayor hand them the contract, he added on an addition $150k more than what they had proposed under the 2x week no cart scenario.
What I remember is that there was a disagreement about the number of customers to be picked up. That's why the total cost per month was difficult to understand. The review did not publish each contractor's rate per customer.
On the 2x per week with no cart, Waste Management's bid was $ 16 per customer per month and Richards was $ 19 or $20. Richards was allowed to match Waste Management's $ 16 rate on the emergency contract.
12:56 - close, but no cigar.
The RFP asked for all proposers to submit their bids whereby they would be paid by the actual tonnage of garbage collected; the prices were based on the assumed annual tonnage.
The previous contract with WM was based on households being collected - at the time the contract was issued, it was 'agreed' that there were 55,000 households, and that was the basis for the old contract.
When the first RFP responses came in, the contractor proposed by the Mayor (FCC) was proposing to supply 46,000 carts. When it was asked why that number, the city attorney who was presenting the proposal to the council (instead of acting in her proper role of providing advice to both the Council and the Mayor - the two branches of government for whom she worked) stated that it was acknowledged by the City PW department that there were not 55,000 active households and the 46,000 carts was based on the estimated number of households where garbage would be collected. And that RFP was paying based on tonnage rather than households just as the later RFP.
BUT when the Mayor couldn't get his contract through to Richards, he declared an emergency. Granted, he left out the 'self-made' adjective that should have preceded the declaration, but still called it an emergency. And to issue that contract, since it wasn't based on the RFP responses, he based the one year contract on 55,000 households. Therefore paying Richards for an extra 9000 households at $16 or so per month.
8:51 I understand your confusion but now that I've lived here for so long, the best or most efficient way to do something has no place in the discussion. It's all about tribal ties even within larger tribal considerations.
Yes, all cities have 96 gallon cans because you can get the most trash gone for the least amount of money in less time.
No one here is figuring out ( and doesn't want to, that a lot of these trash bags you see along the highways are excesstrash. Nor can they imagine that excess also finds it's way into creeks.
Indeed, in '79 when the neighborhoods near McCloud flooded, there was lots of "yard debris and trash in the creek behind those fences behind very nice homes in those then all white neighborhoods.
Some folks don't have out of pocket money larger garbage or extra "bins". Even white folks can live paycheck to paycheck.
This is all about race and politics now. and if WM paid bribes last time, I suspect they did this time as least the ones that took the money then, are afraid not to favor WM now.
I know the asking at the mayoral level was $5000 just to have your bid " considered. Don't know if they did it this time or not or just had proof enough of last time to embarrass some folks...even folks no longer in Jackson or in the same political party.
Our current mayor's father was very unpopular and everyone assumes despite his very different resume or history that anything he does will be bad or " liberal" ( interchangeable words here) so if he does the right thing as he did this time, he has chance of succeeded.
Policy decisions based on known facts just aren't a tradition. It's who you know, who you like because the population was so tiny for so long, that's been an easy way not to have to bother with learn new ways of doing things.
It's a pity really. There are lots of really nice people here and smart too, but the " old ways" still prevail and indeed, most of their education was censored ...it's why so many couldn't schools couldn't get accredited here and the few that did got all the political help Stennis or Eastland could bargain to get.
We have a hard time keeping our young people and we tend to run off any who come back if they try to bring new ideas that worked elsewhere.
Whatever you do,don't try to help. Just stay quiet and disagree with nothing said in a social setting. You'll do better that way.
1:21 pm
Thank you
2:17 - What evidence do you have that would suggest WM paid bribes or that anybody accepted bribes from WM?
Don't bother saying, "I didn't say they DID". You implied it by reference. So, either belly up or shut the fuck up.
Four days until no trash pickup. Commie Chowke is creating another crisis by not acting with the likely intent to get another emergency contract with his pals at Richard's, right?
I think this explains a lot:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/201112/narcissism-why-its-so-rampant-in-politics?amp
That’s from 2011. I believe it’s only gotten worse since then.
Why the Mayor (executive) gets to score the RFP instead of the Council (legislative) and not provide the proposals themselves, seems foreign to separation of powers. Why would the Council not have the power of the purse?
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