Pop’s Sanitation Service available May 1

Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.

After nearly five months of pursuing an exclusive franchise with the county for the curbside pickup of household garbage and seemingly getting rebuffed, Tommy Hardee, of Pop’s Sanitation Services, is ready to start providing garbage pick-up in Jefferson County beginning May 1.
On Feb. 18, following an hour-long discussion of a draft Request for Proposal (RFP) – which discussion raised more questions than it answered – the Jefferson County Commission decided to hold another workshop in the coming weeks to give the county attorney time to revise the RFP (see related story).
“We’ve gotten an outpouring of interest in the service,” Hardee said. “I’ve talked to residents of the county that agree there is a need and they are ready to have the service available.”
“It’s 2021,” Hardee said. “It’s time for Jefferson County to have the option for voluntary garbage pickup service.”
Question: If he could do the service without the need of franchise, as he was now planning to do, why was he pursuing an exclusive franchise with the county?
Hardee said the franchise would not only protect his company, but it would give the county “skin in the game.” With a contract, he said, the county would have a say in how the service was operated, the size, color and placement of the garbage cans, and things of that nature.
He said his business’s website would be up and running in the next few weeks so that people could register for the service. Meanwhile, he was trying to find office space in Jefferson County. But the search for a suitable commercial building was proving difficult.
Hardee said that over the next year, as the business becomes fully functional, it will operate up to five trucks and employ 13 people, including him and the office staff.
“We’re looking at a $600,000 payroll when it’s all done,” Hardee said, adding that the amount included office staff and all the equipment.
Hardee conceded that the garbage collection was a new venture for him; he was, in fact, Supervisor of Elections in Madison County from 2011 to 2020, when he decided not to seek reelection.
“I never wanted to make a career of being the elections supervisor,” Hardee said.
But going back to the question of why garbage collection, he said that while the enterprise was certainly new to him, he had family that had long been in the business and from which he could draw guidance.
Why not start the business in Madison County, where he was presently resided?
He said, there was already a younger man who had started such a pickup service there for which he respects the job he is doing and his pursuit of the service there.
“There’s no need for a second competitor,” Hardee said.
Besides, he added, he had deep ties to Jefferson County.
His son, Hardee said, presently attends Aucilla Christian Academy. He too, had graduated from high school in Jefferson County. And his grandfather had once owned the Ford dealership in Monticello, he said.
As it is, Hardee said, some local officials have encouraged him to proceed with his business even without the franchise.
He reiterated that the business website would soon be up and running, and the rollout for garbage collection pickups would be May 1.

Questions asked about proposed garbage pickup

Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.

County officials’ idea of granting a franchise agreement to a private company for the curbside pickup of household garbage got more complicated following an hour-long workshop on Thursday evening, Feb. 18.

Up for discussion was a 17-page Request for Proposal (RFP) drafted by County Attorney Scott Shirley at the request of the Jefferson County Commission in response to Tommy Hardee, a Madison County vendor who has proposed providing the service here. (See related story.)
The curbside garbage pickup service, as proposed by Hardee and incorporated into the RFP, would be exclusive to one vendor and voluntary to residents.

Meaning, in the latter case, that residents wouldn’t have to subscribe to the service. But if they did, they would still have to pay the $225 annual landfill assessment.

The RFP, a preliminary step in the process, listed a multitude of state, federal and other requirements that bidders would have to meet, as well as asked a series of questions to ascertain each respondent’s qualifications, experience, expertise and other pertinent information.
Immediately, however, questions arose as to the RFP’s thoroughness and the very nature of the franchise.
Phil Calandra, a citizen whose questions indicated a comprehensive reading of the RFP document, called it “broad and vague” in terms of some of the information it solicited.

“It doesn’t ask for things that should be more concrete,” Calandra said, citing as examples of the kind of information that should be solicited, the size of the company’s vehicle fleet, number of employees, places where the service was currently being provided and the like.
“The county needs to have a firm belief that this business will survive for the number of jobs that it promises to create,” Calandra said.
He said the proposed enterprise raised questions that demanded addressing, irrespective of Hardee’s credibility, passion and vision, insofar as the reliability of the numbers and services promised.

Calandra questioned the sense of the annual cost of the service to residents, on top of the $225 that they already have to pay for the landfill assessment; the voluntary nature of the service, which he said in time would likely have to be made mandatory to compensate the vendor for his investments; and many other questions.

“I don’t know that there’s been a lot of thought put into this,” Calandra said. “I think there are key things here that you need to be careful about.”
Hardee responded it was too early to be talking prices or get into the nuts and bolts of the contract, given the early stage of the process. He emphasized, however, that if he wanted, he could provide the service in the county absent a franchise.
The reason for the franchise, he said, was to protect the county as much as his business. The franchise, he said, would allow the county to set parameters and have a measure of control over the operation. It would also, he said, reduce the county’s disposal costs, as his company would be disposing of the garbage.

Hardee said his operation already had three trucks and the plan was to establish the home office here and hire 13 employees within a year.
“It’s not a one-sided deal,” he said. “It’s a give and take deal.”
City Councilman Troy Avera, who was monitoring the meeting virtually, began by chiding county officials for not including the city in its earlier decision to close the Mamie Scott and Bassett Dairy collections sites.

“We were hoping to have input on this before you made the decision,” he said, adding that the two proposed closures would affect city residents.
In terms of the franchise, Avera said the city already provided garbage pickup service in some unincorporated areas just outside the city limits and it was willing to expand the service area if the commission was amenable to the idea.
Next, a representative of Waste Pro – a longtime-waste management business with operations in multiple states – expressed his company’s interest in doing business in Jefferson County.

Lloyd Childree, regional municipal manager at Waste Pro, said his company had the resources, experience and the nimbleness to respond to any situation, citing as example the company’s response in Panama City following Hurricane Michael. He said his company was definitely interested in responding to the RFP.

Commissioner Betsy Barfield had a slew of questions of her own regarding the RFP as it was drafted.
Personally, she said, it was her preference that the county should get out of the garbage business entirely. As that was not likely to happen, however, the RFP needed to nail down the specifics, so that respondents would be bidding apples to apples, she said.
Her many cited concerns included the double cost to residents, which she said would sooner or later become an issue; the unsightliness of trash cans lining roads, unless measures were put in place to ensure their removal after pickups; the scope of the service – would it include the pickup of recyclables, white goods, etc.; would a penalty apply if the business went belly up and could no longer fulfill the contract; and the non-transferability of the contract from one business to another, absent the commission’s approval.

Shirley conceded the very preliminary nature of the RFP and his lack of expertise in the area of waste management.
“I’m the first to admit that I don’t know everything about this area,” he said. “This RFP is strictly a first cut.”

He also reminded commissioners that he had advised them upfront that once word got out that the county was contemplating granting a franchise, other companies would want in on the deal. Which was the reason, he said, why he had advised them against making the franchise exclusive.
In the end, the board instructed Shirley to revisit the RFP and amend it to reflect the many suggestions offered at the workshop. The board also agreed to hold another workshop on the matter, possibly before its next regularly scheduled meeting on March 4.