Mayor Dwain Morrison doesn’t want to talk about the trash contract. He presented every person in the audience, about 40 people in all, with a three-page flyer. Pages one and two are the Mayor’s proposed agenda for the next two years.
“On the back, on both pages, back and front, is the new trash contract and that alleviates all of the lies and the misinformation that has been sent out about the trash contract, because the true facts are on this sheet," he said. "And I want to ask you to read, back and front, and if anyone really thinks after reading this that we made the wrong decision, I ask you to please, please contact me and justify your feelings on this. That’s all I’m going to speak about that."
Along with Morrison's opponent David Nowlin, the two candidates for mayor participated in a public forum with the San Angelo Tea Party Tuesday night, and the trash contract did come up again, much to Morrison’s dislike. Single Member District 4 candidates Lucy Gonzales and Andrew Justis also participated in what was for the most part a low-key and informal discussion of the issues facing San Angelo.
Below: David Nowlin, left, talks to a San Angelo Tea Party member.
“That trash contract, we all know, wasn’t done with transparency. This talking about it after the fact is not good enough. We didn’t have what we were promised, that being transparency,” mayoral candidate David Nowlin said. “The mayor said it was a good deal, to trust him. I can tell you this: There were three people for it and three people against it on that city council and had I’d been the mayor, we wouldn’t have that deal. We might have had a deal, but we wouldn’t have that deal.
“It seems like we’re paying about $5 more per month for our trash pickup and getting less service,” Nowlin said.
Below: Video of both mayoral candidate's opening statements:
Mayor Morrison referred to the April 2014 vote on the trash contract. He stressed that it was then that the council voted 7-0 to declare Republic Services the winner of the RFP process. By May, the SMD 5 council position changed hands from Republic supporter H.R. “Winkie” Wardlaw to trash contract skeptic Elizabeth Grindstaff. Nowlin was referring to a later vote in July 2014 to approve the final contract, 4-3 on a consent agenda item. Then, Grindstaff stated then that her opposition to the contract was based upon the fact that the contract was the only leverage the city had to insure Republic refunded alleged illegal fuel charges and environmental recovery fees. Councilmen Don Vardeman and Rodney Fleming agreed. Morrison pressed for contract approval anyway and won it 4-3. Over 700 signatures in a petition of opposition to the trash contract were presented to the council at that meeting.
Morrison’s defense of the trash contract is that the TDS bid was much higher. His campaign document claims TDS proposed to charge $21.22 per residence, and the negotiated residential rate from Republic is much better at $13.97.
The last chance to delay the contract was at the last council meeting in July 2014. Then, council considered delaying the implementation by six months, Morrison said. But, had council done that, the good deals for the city written into the final contract would have been lost, including the $12 million in upfront payments to the city, he argued. Also, Morrison countered, with no contract in place by Aug. 1, San Angelo would have no trash collection services at all.
Below: Video of trash contract discussion between Morrison and Nowlin
As for transparency during the contract negotiations, Morrison said, “Nobody that plays cards ever shows their hand before the bets are made.”
After Morrison’s defense, Nowlin replied, “If you believe all that, alright.”
Also at the forum, Morrison said that he successfully urged the city council to transfer $2 million of the upfront payments from Republic to the water enterprise fund to prevent San Angelo water rates from rising. He promised to take the remaining $1.6 million left from the trash contract’s upfront payments to create an incentive program to encourage xeriscaping and other building and landscape improvements that conserve water.
Appointed or Elected Chief of Police
The city charter is under review by an appointed committee of citizens. Part of the charter that makes the news every four years is whether San Angelo should continue to have the police chief an elected position instead of a position appointed by the city manager. All of the candidates agreed that the position should continue to be an elected one. Morrison gave a brief history of the elected chief based upon his recollection and said he was very much in favor.
Nowlin said he was in support of what the people wanted, and he believed San Angelo remains in favor of the elected chief based upon feedback on the campaign trail. But he said he would welcome a resolution to support a vote of the citizens to debate the issue and reconsider. Morrison said that the issue generally comes up every four years and the ballot initiative always fails. Although he did suggest that the most recent initiative saw gaining momentum for an appointed chief.
Another candidate forum will be held at Zentner’s Daughter Restaurant Wednesday at the monthly San Angelo Pachyderm Club at noon. We will cover more of what Gonzales and Justis have to say at that meeting.
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Comments
In spite of all the excuse making done by Mayor Morrison after the fact to justify his vote for the contract, the bottom line is, this is not something the people of San Angelo wanted. He deliberately went against the voting constituency as this was discussed just a couple of years ago and dropped like a hot potato when numerous valid reasons were given why we did not want 96 gallon trash cans. I see my elderly neighbors struggling to get to their mailboxes and walk back to their doors. I'll watch them to make sure they don't fall. Now, they're supposed to waltz these dumpsters around like they're on Dancing With the Stars.
The question remains, why didn't the low bidder get the contract? How does Morrison look the voters in the eye and tell us we'll just have to get used to driving out to the landfill. Apparently, he pays someone to mow his yard.
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PermalinkTim,
I don't think you understand this yet but a majority of people will not move the mini dumpsters from their curb. Go take a look at most other cities that have the ugly things and see what you notice. They are always sitting on the curb 7 days a week. This way it will look real nice and trashy all week long. I guess the Mayor wanted to see the entire city looks like his part of the world.
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PermalinkI noticed in the video Morrison is trying brag that we got a one time payment from Republic for 3.6 Million to help pay for the water budget deficit. With his version of the story he did this so the citizens would not have to see their fees go up to pay for the deficit. What he decided not to tell in his side of the story or is just to incompetent to understand is the we are paying extra fees for the next 10 years well above the 2 million deficit because of his bad negotiation skills in repaying this money to Republic plus a very high interest rate ( Worse then junk bond rates). In the end we are still paying for the deficit at a much higher rate.
Mayor Morrison please don't pee on our leg and try to tell us its raining.
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PermalinkPeople need to get out and vote for NOWLIN....... It's time we throw Morrison out with yesterdays "TRASH".......
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PermalinkIt just might be the mayor (or at least his employees). I was told that if my garage was in the back of my house, my trash would be picked up in the back still. I contacted the city multiple times to confirm this and to question the clearance needed to get down our alley vs the clearance available in our alley. Then, it comes out that the trash will be picked up on the side where the MAJORITY of homes have their garages, which means our mini dumpster will have to be pulled from the alley side of our house to the front. (Or we can store it in front of our house...wouldn't that be pretty?)
A rep from Republic did finally come visit us and made suggestions. Our yard is already xeriscaped, which would add to the difficulty in pulling the cart around from the back. One of the suggestions was that we have a path put in...at our expense, of course. We did the yard to help conserve resources and now they want to suggest we spend MORE money to put in a sidewalk on the edge of our yard.
The other suggestion was actually to put the cart by the front door...really, he said that. We have a walled atrium area, and his suggestion was that we build a wall within that (again, at our expense) to hide the trash can.
Morrison's comment about playing cards was, in my opinion, flippant and a weak excuse for pushing this contract through pretty much behind the back of the residents'. It's time we get someone in that office who will be open and honest with us.
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PermalinkBP...
I guess you missed the press release a few weeks back that the city try to shove out quietly that said if you have alley access that is where your trashed would be picked up "unless the trucks would not work there". Guess what? The trucks are not going to work in several of the alleys around here.
Way to go go Mayor ... Keep the city trashy for an extra cost.... What a lying stubborn jerk. I cant tell if he is just dumb or to arrogant to admit that hes an idiot and will try to continue his lies until the end. Also if you notice in the video he is already trying to lay blame on the other members during the original 7-0 vote for the RFP. I guess he is trying to mimic Obama on laying blame.
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PermalinkJames,
I think your confusion is on the understanding of the term "separation of church and state". the term people like to use is "separation OF church and state" not "separation FROM church and state". There is a big difference. Remember words have meanings that have already been established, you cant make your own meanings to words you like and expect others to understand you.
Also as a side note this term is not in the constitution. The First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." In other words a politician can get up and say any religious thing they want as long as they don't pass a law saying you have to follow it.
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Permalink@San Angelo, you said, ""separation OF church and state" not "separation FROM church and state". That is no more than a semantics to hide behind the implied meaning. Here is a bit of history I found for you.
In an 1802 letter to the Danbury (Conn.) Baptist Association, Thomas Jefferson, then president, declared that the American people through the First Amendment had erected a "wall of separation between church and state." (Colonial religious liberty pioneer Roger Williams used a similar phrase 150 years earlier.)
Jefferson, however, was not the only leading figure of the post-revolutionary period to use the term separation. James Madison, considered to be the Father of the Constitution, said in an 1819 letter, "[The] number, the industry and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church and state." In an earlier, undated essay (probably early 1800s), Madison wrote, "Strongly guarded ... is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States."
As eminent church-state scholar Leo Pfeffer notes in his book, Church, State and Freedom, "It is true, of course, that the phrase 'separation of church and state' does not appear in the Constitution. But it was inevitable that some convenient term should come into existence to verbalize a principle so clearly and widely held by the American people....[The] right to a fair trial is generally accepted to be a constitutional principle; yet the term 'fair trial' is not found in the Constitution. To bring the point even closer home, who would deny that 'religious liberty' is a constitutional principle? Yet that phrase too is not in the Constitution. The universal acceptance which all these terms, including 'separation of church and state,' have received in America would seem to confirm rather than disparage their reality as basic American democratic principles."
Thus, it is entirely appropriate to speak of the "constitutional principle of church-state separation" since that phrase summarizes what the First Amendment's religion clauses do -- they separate church and state."
People today (like Rick Perry) use it to hide the fact the Christian majority is slipping away and they really do not want to let it go.
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PermalinkDidn't this circumstance come about because so many business owners - the people who have the most say in San Angelo - were eager to see Trash Away go even if they had to bend the rules to get cheaper service?
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