According to the latest City council packets and Manager’s report:
Request for Proposals (“RFP”) for Solid Waste providers has been prepared, reviewed and published for interested parties. The City’s current trash provider’s contract expires in May 2025, however; due to the lead time required on equipment and materials, Council will be asked to consider awarding the contract in July. The City has based the award requirements on “best value” as provided for in Local Government Code 252.022
Gee. What a great idea! I wonder where they came up with that one? I may have mentioned this a few times over the last couple years….
Council members win a “prize” from Waste Connections right before garbage contract was about to expire.
Nice to have a dude as mayor who thinks to do these things and maybe save a few bucks. Let me rephrase that – it’s nice to have a SMART dude as mayor. As opposed to the last few dummies we had in there.
I think this is the final year of their five-year contract. So if I was Assistant TO the City Manager Ryan “Gump” Ward, I think I’d be negotiating with them a little bit and reminding them that next spring, their contract is over with the City. Maybe the City is going to put the whole thing out for bid again if you don’t re-think that 3.66% increase right now. Maybe we only raise it 1% this time, buddy.
Well, Waste Connections is dropping the bomb on Lampasas [page 70]. They, too, are using the Brandon Administration’s massive inflation to stick it to the citizens.
Waste Connections hands out ‘prize’ to City council girls…Waste Connections then gets $5.5 million contract renewed (which was not put out for bids to anyone else).
They also did a pretty shitty job last year and had a LOT of complaints against them. There is is again! Just like the pool – higher costs and worse service. It’s almost like there’s a pattern there!
So the question is: will the City eat this cost or pass it along to the consumer? You’d think that maybe the City would swallow this one since:
#1 – they just got handed almost $2 million from the Feds in “free Covid money”.
#2 – they just decided to borrow $6.5 million more for some questionable projects like sprucing up the landscaping at the Wastewater plant and Old City Hall.
#3 – they ALREADY jammed everyone with higher electricity rates last November while at the same time giving a lot of “free” electrical hookups to all the rich developers in town!
What will Finley do here? Will he earn his bloated salary? Stay tuned!
P.S. – don’t forget these guys ALSO run our retarded “recycling program” that loses over $12,000 per year. Looks like it’s going to lose even more now! Man, I really hate being right all the time.
Here is an interesting nugget I ran across from Jan 17, 2017 [page 11] regarding the last time City council renewed their trash hauling contract.
WAY back then (three whole years ago), the City of Lampasas used Waste Management for their trash hauling. That contract was due to expire in the spring of 2017. Here is what then-council-member Misti Talbert said about renewing the contract with Waste Management:
“City council is not unhappy with Waste Management but wants to see if it is possible to save money on trash collection”
Wow. Smart thinking, Misti. I would agree that it NEVER HURTS to look around for a better deal. Seems to be something City council rarely does with anything else (*cough Azbell cough*), but I wholeheartedly agree it is a smart thing to do with EVERYTHING.
So what happened in 2017? Finley and the gang looked at FIVE different companies and let them bid for the new contract (yes, there are FIVE companies out there!). According to 2017 Finley, this “is a highly competitive process” [1/20/17 front page news].
Oh goody! Competition! That is always good for getting the best price!
They did all this work for a three-year contract…since that Waste Connections contract was to last until April 30, 2020 (two weeks from now). All well and good. Nice job, 2017 Misti and 2017 Finley!
Fast forward three years to 2020 Talbert and 2020 Finley. Waste Connections’ contract is now up for renewal and the new period will be for FIVE years. Do 2020 Talbert (now mayor) and 2020 Finley still have the same zeal for “seeing if it is possible to save money on trash collection”?
Weird how nobody worried about “potential disruption of service” three years ago when they let five companies go at it to get the best price. So what changed?
In short, Waste Connections handed three members of City council thousands of dollars just months before those same council members would be making a decision on a new five year, $5.5 MILLION dollar contract
Sooooo….back THEN (2017)it was worth it to check around for a better price just for the hell of it. But NOW (2020), after winning a bribe prize from Waste Connections, you are perfectly happy NOT to bother looking around for a better price, despite the fact that there is a “highly competitive process” out there and despite the fact that THIS contract is for a much longer period (5 years versus 3).
Got it.
My how things change in 36 months.
Just to be clear, you can hardly call this a bribe…since ALL the money Waste Connections handed to City council (plus another $7,200 swiped from the HOT slush fund) was immediately wasted on some giant metal letters. They didn’t PERSONALLY see any gain from the money. HOWEVER, they were without a doubt in my mind, influenced and not intelligent enough to see it. Unwittingly duped, as it were.
Boy, the Lampasas Economic Dunces Club (LEDC) has sure been hard at ‘work’ recently! You can bet that Mandy Walsh is still costing the taxpayer $100,000 per year despite there being no economic activity to “develop” or “direct”! They’ve been SO busy, in fact, that they didn’t bother to hold a March meeting! Therefore, the latest info we have on their wheel spinning are the minutes from January 15th! Three full months ago!
They usually hold their meetings in the new $1.5 million Fishbowl BUT they NEVER BOTHER to use the $96,000 A/V system to record their meetings – despite the fact that they handle mishandle hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Apparently they WILL actually meet next Wednesday but it will be by teleconference. So I’m guessing it will all be shrouded in even more secrecy than normal.
(Seems to me they should take a page out of City council’s book and live stream on YouTube – you know, maybe use that $96,000 A/V monstrosity more than 3 hours per month!)
[If you are a new reader, you can get a taste of the LEDC profligate ways HERE and HERE]
I’d love to know if they are STILL going to pay Pope Eckermann The Engineer $100,000 to further ‘develop’ the already ‘shovel-ready’ business park….seeing as how the economy is now cratering and will likely be toast for they next year and a half at LEAST. Even the LEDC can’t be stupid enough to think anyone is going to show up to that weed patch any time soon with “high-paying jobs”. LOL.
But they now have something almost as good! Three giant metal letters – LTX! I’ll pause while you all gasp in admiration over such a brilliant and original idea (I think Mandy picked it up at one of her many $5,000 three-day seminars she seems to attend monthly to get ideas to “revitalize” the downtown area).
THIS will bring the tourists in from Austin and Dallas!!
Anyways, the ORIGINAL idea was to use the $7,500 “prize” that was “won” by our City Council Karaoke Team (I’ll get to that at the end of the article**) to pay for these three letters.
Alas, as is typical in government the final cost was closer to $15,000 (see pages 26 and 27)….and City council voted to loot one of their slush funds (the HOT fund – Hotel Occupancy Tax) to make up the difference.
I guess the theory is throngs of tourists will swarm here from ALL OVER Texas to get their picture taken with the LTX metal sign. They will then spend a few hundred thousand dollars at Eve’s Cafe (which I love, btw) and maybe one of those trinket shops. The state will THEN collect their sales tax and THEN they will send THAT back to Lampasas where it will stuff our coffers and we will actually MAKE money! Meanwhile the tourists will look at the photo a month later and wonder what the “L” stands for in LTX.
I calculate they should break even on the endeavor around August of 2047.
HOW THE MONEY WAS ‘WON’**
In October of 2018 and again in 2019, part of City council traveled (as usual) to the useless and expensive Texas Municipal League conference and ‘won’ a karaoke prize offered by Waste Connections. They ‘won’ $5,000 in 2018 and $2,500 last fall.
In what I assume is a complete and utter coincidence, Waste Connections’ trash hauling contract was JUST up for renewal a month or two ago. City council voted to renew this contract without seeking competing bids. Finley intimated it was just too much hassle to go out and get a bid from another trash hauler. Never mind that they did EXACTLY THAT three years ago [3/3/17 Dispatch – front page], which is how they ended up switching to Waste Connections in the FIRST PLACE…but I digress.
Toups, Talbert, and Kuehne – the ‘winners’ of the ‘prize’ – all sit on City council and voted YES on this decision. The contract, by the way, is worthroughly FIVE AND A HALF MILLION DOLLARS ($5,500,000.00)
I’m not accusing anyone of hanky panky or quid pro quo…just reporting the facts and observing incidents that happened fairly coincidentally. I leave it up to the reader to form their own opinions.
I will say this – whoever came up with this ‘prize’ idea over at Waste Connections is a complete genius: spend $7,500 and then get $5,500,000.00 contract.
So – just to sum up the series of events for those on the short bus and the IT Department:
‘Winners’ pledge to spend that $7,500 buying big metal letters LTX
Big metal letters actually end up costing almost $15,000
HOT fund raided to make up difference
Waste Connections awarded $5.5 MILLION trash contract without seeking bids
**UPDATE** – Here is a weird nugget: In the January 27, 2017 Dispatch [page 11] then-council-member Misti Talbert said the following about switching from Waste Management to Waste Connections: “City council is not unhappy with Waste Management but wants to see if it is possible to save money on trash collection”
Ahhhh….so back THEN it was worth it to check around for a better price just for the hell of it. But NOW, after winning a bribe prize from Waste Connections, you are perfectly happy NOT to bother looking around for a better price. Got it.
These politicians and bureaucrats are SO selfless, they ONLY spent an extra $295 on a vanity plate for the LTX sculpture too! Of course, no mention that the letters cost almost TWICE the amount of the bribe prize they took won from Waste Connections. Perhaps they should have added “Taxpayer” or “HOT Fund” to the vanity plate as well?
