Aaron Broussard's CAO began moving after dump owner's spouse resigned from Jefferson Parish Council
A compactor rolls over garbage at the Jefferson Parish landfill in Waggaman.Paying for the Jefferson Parish landfill was a pedestrian process during the first term of the present Parish Council. Every fall from 2004 through 2007, the council put aside $5 million or so to operate the dump for the next year.
But in the fall of 2008, as Parish President Aaron Broussard's administration was drafting the budget for 2009, Chief Administrative Officer Tim Whitmer gave Finance Director Gwen Bolotte a curious directive. He told her to cut the financing for the dump, Bolotte said.
So on Sept. 23, 2008, the administration sent the council a budget with only $468,000 for the landfill. It was an unprecedented reduction that left roughly enough money to pay the dump operator, Waste Management Inc., for just one month.
In hindsight, that decision turns out to be a key step in a chain of events to terminate Waste Management's contract, shutter the public landfill that it operates and start sending most of Jefferson's household garbage to River Birch Inc., a private landfill company whose owner, Fred Heebe, has spent years coveting the business.
Within months of Whitmer's order, the Parish Council agreed to close Jefferson's dump for a quarter century and pay River Birch no less than $6.3 million a year for its services.
Tom Wilkinson, left, and Tim Whitmer confer at a Jefferson Parish Council meeting in 2004.That deal is now a subject in a wide-ranging federal criminal investigation of Broussard's administration. The inquiry began with disclosures that Whitmer's private insurance agency, Lagniappe Industries, was selling policies to government agencies, parish employees and companies seeking parish work, including River Birch. Whitmer and Broussard resigned in January; Parish Attorney Tom Wilkinson resigned March 4.
Whitmer's motive for cutting the public landfill's budget is unclear. He didn't respond to requests for comment, and Bolotte said he never gave her a reason.
River Birch attorney Billy Gibbens said in a written statement that Heebe's company did not collude with Whitmer in 2008 to obtain the landfill contract.
"River Birch had no discussions with Tim Whitmer about Jefferson Parish's budget proposal for Waste Management's contract in 2008 or at any other time," he said. When asked if any River Birch associate had spoken with anyone within Broussard's administration before Whitmer's budget order, Gibbens said, "The answer is no."
Sneed resigns
Whitmer's decision to cut the landfill budget fits into a timeline that began with the resignation of Heebe's wife, Jennifer Sneed, from the Parish Council and culminated when the Parish Council approved the agreement with River Birch.
Fred Heebe and Jennifer Sneed at their home in 2002.Sneed, who had abstained from voting on garbage matters during her tenure, left office Aug. 22, 2008. She and Heebe had just bought a home in New Orleans, and she said she wanted to be a full-time mother to their twin daughters.
Shortly thereafter, Whitmer approached Bolotte to reduce the landfill budget.
"Why? I don't know," Bolotte said. "I was instructed to do it."
Councilmen Tom Capella and John Young, the panel's at-large members, said Whitmer acted without their input.
"That certainly wasn't discussed with me," Young said.
"I did not meet with (Whitmer) on that issue," Capella said.
Still, the council approved the 2009 budget on Nov. 19, 2008. It included $1.4 million for landfill operations in 2009, roughly enough to pay for three months of the Waste Management contract. Arguments with Waste Management about billing and service after Hurricane Katrina prompted the council to OK the reduced financing, Young said.
During this same period, however, the Broussard administration also was pushing for ways to reduce the amount of yard clipping and tree limbs headed to the public dump. Whitmer explained at the time that the Environmental Affairs Department wanted to save space in the landfill. Environmental Affairs Director Marnie Winter put together guidelines for "woody waste" disposal in October, in preparation for seeking an outside contractor to do the work, records show.
But the effort's scope would change drastically in the next six weeks. By the time the administration accepted proposals on Dec. 11, the planned contract's parameters had morphed into a request to dispose not just of woody waste but "any other solid waste or other wastes associated with a reduction in the air space used at the Jefferson Parish landfill."
Two companies responded. Concrete Busters of Louisiana proposed to incinerate woody waste for roughly $7 a ton, but didn't address other types of waste.
River Birch, however, proposed not only removing woody waste for $1 a ton but also taking everything else, for an overall average of $19.22 a ton, according to the company's response. The offer came with a condition: Jefferson must stop sending garbage to its public landfill for the next quarter century.
A committee comprised of Alan Gandolfi, the council's budget and research director, assistant parish attorney David Fos and Wilkinson recommended River Birch, documents show. Heebe touted to parish officials that River Birch could save taxpayers as much as $60 million over the course of the contract.
In January 2009, the council gave permission to Wilkinson to negotiate with River Birch, and six months later they had a deal. The Parish Council approved it June 24, and Capella, as council chairman, soon signed it.
Litigation
That contract remains in limbo for legal reasons.
On behalf of the parish, Wilkinson sued Waste Management in August to bring an early end to its contract to operate the public landfill. To complicate matters, the suit includes accusations that Waste Management, under a separate contract to provide curbside garbage collection and truck it to the dump until 2008, failed to perform after Katrina.
Six weeks after the council approved the River Birch contract, Wilkinson filed that lawsuit in 24th Judicial District Court in Gretna. On Aug. 21, he laid out in a letter to a Waste Management representative a strategy he wanted to use to void the current contract, a strategy that echoes Whitmer's order in 2008 to cut the landfill budget.
"The attached suit seeks a declaratory judgment that the Parish may exercise the non-appropriation clause in the Landfill Contract and cease funding as of December 31, 2009," Wilkinson wrote.
That clause lets the administration cancel any contract that the council has not financed for the next fiscal year, parish officials said.
With the suit still pending in October and the administration preparing the 2010 budget, Whitmer again told Bolotte to slash landfill spending, Bolotte said. This time, he ordered her to cut it to $439,000 for 2010.
Bolotte said the order came on Oct. 2, just before she planned to present the budget to the council. Out of options, she said, she transferred about $4.6 million from the landfill account to an account to pay for "professional services."
However, Whitmer later ordered the money returned to the landfill account, Bolotte said, and the council financed the dump for all of 2010.
Now with the Waste Management contract in litigation, the River Birch contract on hold and federal investigators subpoenaing records of the agreements, the council has ordered a review of the financial benefits of the River Birch deal. Three environmental engineering firms applied to do the work, but the council has extended the search to drum up more interest from auditing firms.
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Richard Rainey can be reached at rrainey@timespicayune.com or 504.883.7052.
