Humboldt Board votes ‘no’ on trash rate increase
by Shane Wofford
Update, 7/15:
In a surprise move, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen have voted against the second reading of Ordinance 2025-08, meaning the proposed rate increase to $40/month for trash pickup will not move forward. This comes as a direct result of board members Julie Jones Coleman and Tammie Porter reversing their votes from the first reading of the ordinance on June 24.
“When I got out in my community, and I had people come to my house, and they’re upset,” said Jones Coleman. “When I have people that are not even in my ward on Pine Lake Road that’s had bulk there for three months, and Mag Duffey Road for two months, and I’ve had this and that. I can’t sit here at this table and just run the numbers and whatever. I’m seeing with my eyes what I’m saying.”
Alderlady Tammie Porter noted that her reservations with the issue go all the way back to the initial bidding of the waste disposal contract.
“The reason why I voted ‘yes’ for Rakk Solid was all I was hearing was people complaining about Republic,” said Porter, referring to the initial vote to award the contract to Rakk Solid Waste. “I said ‘Well let’s give these other people a chance, and see how they do. And if they mess up, we’ll go back to Republic.’…As far as the contract, we didn’t get the contract until after we voted. We didn’t know what was in the contract!”
With Jones Coleman and Porter reversing their votes, that left Alderman Shane Lynch as the sole ‘yes’ vote for the second reading.
“I’d like to state that the city was going to have to increase the rate anyway, no matter who got it (the contract), due to the depletion of the solid waste fund,” said Lynch. “Also Rakk Solid has someone here in the community, they have an office here in the community, and they pick up bulk on Saturdays and Sundays…the difference in price would be to put money back into the solid waste fund.
Ultimately, a question was called, and the second reading failed by a vote of 4-1, with the votes as follows:
Monte Johnson – NO
Julie Jones Coleman – NO
Shane Lynch – YES
Tammie Porter – NO
Leon McNeal – NO
Little has changed on the topic of bulk trash pickup, with the mayor stating that the city’s intention is still to bid out the bulk haul-off as a separate contract. Said contract is still in the drafting stages.
A full recap of the July 14 board meeting will be featured in the July 22 edition of the Humboldt Chronicle.
Original article:
Trash collection is once again the talk of the town in Humboldt, as the Board of Mayor and Aldermen prepare to vote on a second reading of Ordinance 2025-08, that would see a new fee schedule put in place for garbage pickup. As a result of this ordinance, Humboldt citizens would see charges of $40-per-month for collection, approximately double the rate citizens had been paying over the previous year.
Members of the board who are in support of the fee increase claim that the increase has been inevitable for some time, and that the current price structure is unsustainable in a world of rising prices.
“Things go up,” commented Alderman Shane Lynch during the June 24 board meeting. “We can’t live in 2025 for what we were making in 2000, or 2020 for that matter.”
In the same meeting, Alderman Leon McNeal voiced his displeasure with the increase, citing heavier burdens placed on those with fixed incomes or financial hardship.
“We was only paying $20, and they were doing the same thing you’re talking about for $20,” said McNeal. “You (Lynch) might be in better shape, or me,or the rest of the board might be in better shape to pay the extra money. But everybody ain’t in that shape.”
This controversy comes just a few months after the board voted not to renew the city’s waste disposal contract with Republic Services, and instead awarded the contract to Rakk Solid Waste. The board cited poor service on Republic Service’s part and frequent complaints from citizens as the reason for the switch. This move itself marked an increase of $8-per-month in general trash pickup even before the new fee schedule was introduced.
All of this discourse is running concurrently with an ongoing dispute between Republic Services and the City of Humboldt regarding the payment of tipping fees for bulk waste disposal. The tipping fee, which is the payment required to deposit bulk waste into a landfill or disposal site, had in the past been absorbed by Republic Services, who are also the owners of the landfill. When the new contract was awarded, Rakk Solid did not assume the cost of that phase of disposal.
“In our pre-bid meeting, and even before that when we were asking questions about what we were bidding on and things of that nature, it was told to us that bulk haul-off was bid out separately,” said Rakk Solid owner and CEO Michael Jenkins. “And when we think of bulk haul off being billed out separately, us and the city were under the impression that they paid MBI (a third-party transport company contracted by the city) for that haul off.”
“It was just kind of one of those things that’s been going on for so long that nobody really understood that particular tipping fee part of the contract. The assumption was that bulk haul-off in its entirety was covered by the city,” Jenkins continued. “I’m out there doing my job and doing what I’m being told to do right now. And then once they (the city) get that plane landed, we will definitely sit in there and do our part.”
Representatives for Republic Services, however, claim that this constitutes a breach in Rakk Solid’s contract with the city. Specifically, the letter cites Section 5.09 of the contract, which reads:
“Disposal: All Refuse collected for disposal by the Contractor shall be hauled to a Disposal Site. The charge for disposal shall be included in the rate set forth in the Proposal for each Unit serviced by the Contractor.”
“We reached out to the new contractor (Rakk Solid) and also the city to say, ‘Hey, when MBI brings us your bulk waste, who do we need to bill?’” said Bobby Stewart, general manager and representative for Republic Services. “Do we bill the city and then the city charges their contractor? Or do we bill the contractor directly?’ And at that point, nobody would take the bill.”
“Based on the contract, the current collection provider is responsible for that disposal, which from my understanding they refused to pay,” continued Stewart. “And so what we believe should happen ultimately is this coming Monday (July 14)…is that they should clarify, they should null and void the current bid…and then rebid it.”
Republic Services’ legal council has also addressed a letter to the board which alleges that Rakk Solid’s bid for the contract can thus be considered not responsive. The letter furthermore demands that the board either rebid the contract in its entirety or return the contract to Republic Services.
“Simply put, Republic demands that the RFP (Request for Proposals of Solid Waste Collection and Disposal Services) process be redone or that the City award the contract to Republic,” the letter states. “Doing so would be in the best interest of the City-a requirement of the RFP.”
The entirety of the document sent to the board is included alongside this article.
“We’ve been contracted to do a job, and that’s what we’re gonna do,” said Jenkins when asked about the letter. “One thing that I want people to know is, when you hire a local company, you’re getting investment back into your community. We have an office right there by the Mayor’s Office. We want people in the community to know that we’re here. We want to help out where we can, not only in doing our job that we’ve been contracted to do. We want to help clubs and organizations within the city. We want to reinvest in the city of Humboldt.”
At the June 23 board meeting, Mayor Marvin Sikes expressed his intention to have a separate contract prepared and bid out for bulk trash haul-off, which would include the tipping fees. During the same meeting, the board seemed to assert that the “disposal site” mentioned in the contract referred to the transfer facility in Humboldt, and not to the landfill itself.
“Republic’s standpoint is that there is no interpretation of it,” said Stewart. “It states very clearly that the contractor is responsible for the disposal of all waste collected within the city. That’s not some of the waste that the current contractor would like to dispose of and pay for or any of that. It states very clearly, all waste collected within the city is paid for by the disposal.”
At the time of this writing, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen are scheduled to meet on Monday, July 14. As mentioned, the board is expected to vote on the second reading of Ordinance 2025-08, which would finalize the proposed $20-per-month rate increase to bring the total amount to $40-per-month for standard trash pickup.
Representatives from Republic services are also expected to attend the meeting and address the board regarding the contract.
