UPDATE
At their February 26 meeting, the City Commissioners voted 4-1 to pass an amendment to the City’s contract with Marpan Recycling and a recycling rate increase.
Commissioner Jeremy Matlow voted against the changes, noting that he is concerned about the financial impact of the rate increase and would rather present a plan to the community first.
Under an amendment to the City’s contract with Marpan, residential service rate will increase from $19.91 to $20.91 per month.
The rate increase will result in around $750,000 per year to cover the cost of the rest of the contract as well as future recycling costs.
Original Story
At the February 26 meeting, the City Commissioners will vote on an amendment to the City’s contract with Marpan Recycling and a resolution to increase solid waste rates.
In December 2019, Marpan Recycling announced that, because of price changes in the recyclables market, Marpan can no longer serve Tallahassee long-term. Marpan offered to enter a 12-month interim agreement to give the City and the County time to determine alternative options for the recycling program.
At their January 2020 meetings, the City and County Commissioners both authorized an interim contract with Marpan.
The amendment covers the remainder of the contract, which will expire on January 21, 2021, unless the City chooses to extend it for another eight months.
Under the amendment, the City will increase payments to Marpan, paying an $80.25 per ton processing fee for single-stream recyclables.
“The City’s commitment to continue its recycling program will of necessity result in higher costs,” staff reports.
“In the short term, payments to Marpan will increase under the amended contract, and a long-term solution will result in future cost increases that are unknown at this time,” staff reports.
The proposed rate increases in the resolution will fund the increased payments.
“Staff is recommending a change to solid waste rates that will increase residential service and commercial barrel service bills by $1.00 per month,” staff reports. “Residential service would increase from $19.91 to $20.91 per month. Commercial rates for dumpster service would increase by $0.35 per pickup.”
Staff reports that the revenue from the rate increase will stay in the solid waste enterprise fund to cover contract costs and fund future recycling options.
Based on the City’s 62,400 residential customers, the rate increase will raise approximately $750,000 each year to address future recycling costs.
The staff notes that with the increase, the City of Tallahassee residential solid waste monthly rate of $20.91 will be the sixth lowest when measured against 20 comparable Florida cities.
If passed, the resolution will take effect on March 1, 2020.
According to the meeting agenda, the City and the County are currently working together to explore alternatives for the future of the recycling program.
UPDATED: Commissioners Approve Recycling Contract Amendment, Rate Increase added by Lexie Pitzen on
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News Maven,
And that should be the front page news story, but crickets from our fake news.
Could it be because Gabordi was one of the main participants front and center at the Water Buffalo parties?
Hope:
I remember Gabordi standing in the pool, wearing a shirt over his tubby top. And people avoiding talking to him, because he was nothing more than a wannabe influence peddler.
Spoke volumes about his total lack of credibility.
November 13, 2017, Tallahassee Reports:
“Documents provided to the FBI show that Paige Carter-Smith was copied on several city emails dealing with the City’s “Request for Proposals/Recyclable Materials Processing Services” which was ultimately awarded to Marpan Recycling in February 2013.
Ms. Carter-Smith was the only non-bidder copied on the email. The email address used by Carter-Smith was “paige@govinc.net” which is an email associated with Governance, a government consulting firm.
Governance was owned by City Commissioner Scott Maddox until it was sold to Carter-Smith in 2010.
What you said Thomas is 100% why the commissioners are discussing the recycling program.
The “reasons facts and situations” being thrown out for public consumption is 100% BS.
Some of the public always will believe because they want to.
But bottom line is Marpan is tainted due to the FBI and no longer able to gift or provide inappropriate financial contributions to our current Commissioners. But they sure do weave a almost believable tale of lies as they carefully slow roll Marpan out of the picture and begin the search to replace Marpan with a company that can inappropriately enrich our current Commissioners.
Sorry about your feelings to all the believers out there. But somewhere in the back of your minds you believers know the truth.
And put in a Public Record requests of all the financial ‘donations’ that Marpan slips to all of the city of Tallahassee community events….like every single one. Thousand here, $500 there; gold sponsor, suppling $ for food – especially thru the Community event groups…Ridiculous.
All media outlets should report expeditiously the donations and contributions Marpan has made to elected officials campaign accounts through the years. Also the amount they contributed to the Tallahassee chamber junkets.
Also please report the salary that the Marpan CEO makes compared to the rank-and-file.
The companies that are
paying kickbacks and contributions and then giving the citizens substandard services, this corruption needs to stop. Waste Pro, Marpan, etc.
Kim & Mayda Williams have had a longtime presence at the annual Chamber of Crony Capitalists Confab. They sponsor the Water Buffalo party. And they’re big in United Way too.
If they chose NOT to move those influence dollars off the income sheet, perhaps they could have avoided this shortage, and saved the taxpayers?
Priorities.
This looks just like what I have said many times: Businesses will bid for City, County and State Contracts, bidding just low enough that you will believe (want to Believe) that they can actually do the job for that and THEY (the Business) know that they can’t do it for that BUT, they all know that when they come back to you for more Money that instead of letting them go and having to go thru the process of putting it out for Biding again that, you will just give them MORE Money. Break the Cycle and hold them accountable.
If there is no Market, let’s just throw Money at the Problem. Surely that will fix it. Have we no more Imagination to derive better Solutions?
And to add, the Mayor touts “our robust economy” in TLH, yet they need more Money to contunue Bad Policy. Expand your Thinking.
Mayor Flintstone extracts another $750K from Taxahasseans!
Yabba
Dabba
DOO!
Thats it Maven!
From this moment on I’m adopting your genius name “Mayor Flintstone”!
Honestly I was struggling to come up with an appropriate name for him and was never quite happy with my lame attempts.
Mayor Flintstone: GENIUS!!!!
And to think some people want these people to run the state. Probably be the same people who will cry when 60% of their paycheck (if they’re even employed) winds up going to taxes.
You are absolutely correct. So long as raw material remains cheaper than recycled product, Business 101 will rule the day. Most recycled material is crushed into blocks and shipped off to the Philippines… and usually dumped into the ocean in-route anyway. It’s quite sad and ironic really. A Refuse to Energy plant conversion would go a long way, and makes sense.
A smart entrepreneur might consider accepting all the plastic recycling material, then melting and molding it into the actual cabbage and recycling containers we use. The city and the county would likely structure a purchasing agreement for the cans.
Not sure we have the visionary thinkers necessary to accomplish this however.