All proposals were scrapped in favor of new solicitation
When Jefferson Parish Council member Byron Lee proposed last week that all proposals be scrapped in favor of a new process to resurrect curbside garbage recycling, he said it was an issue of fairness to the six companies seeking the contract.
Byron LeeIf campaign contributions can be used as a litmus test for such fairness, then those listed in the affidavits of the competing companies attest to it.
Council members said that confusion led to their 5-2 vote to cancel the proposals and go back to the drawing board. An evaluation committee had initially nixed four companies for being unqualified or not properly applying for the work, leaving only IESI Corp. and Allied Waste Services for the council to consider. After a second evaluation, however, one disqualified company, Waste Pro USA, was added back and allowed to compete.
Lee said Waste Pro's reintroduction led him to ask his colleagues to reboot the process. He couldn't be reached Tuesday, but he said in an interview last week that none of the companies involved had influenced his decision.
One of the disqualified companies that protested the evaluation process, and that benefited from Lee's motion, Richard's Disposal Inc., gave Lee $2,500 in April 2010. But IESI, which had survived the committee evaluation, also donated to Lee's campaign: $1,000 in 2008 and $2,000 in 2009.
Councilman Elton Lagasse, who favored Lee's measure to restart the process, fell into a similar situation, having received $3,000 from Richard's Disposal and $3,500 from IESI. He said none of the six companies contacted him prior to the vote.
"I was really surprised no one spoke up about that," he said, adding that any contributions he received did nothing to influence his vote.
Council members Louis Congemi and Cynthia Lee-Sheng voted against Lee's measure, signalling that they wanted to award the contract to one of the remaining three companies. None of the six companies listed contributions to Lee-Sheng's coffers. Congemi received $1,000 from IESI in 2008 and another $1,000 in 2009, according to the company's affidavit.
Congemi said IESI never contacted him. He said he voted against Lee's measure because it punished companies that took all the proper steps.
"Waste Pro had my vote," he said, adding that the evaluation committee had recommended that company to the council.
Along with Allied Waste and Waste Pro, Organic Energy Corp., made no campaign contributions to Parish President John Young or the council members, according to the affidavits.
When Young and Tom Capella were on the council in 2008, Waste Management Inc. gave $1,000 to Young, $2,000 to Capella and $1,000 to District Attorney Paul Connick Jr. IESI, which has the garbage collection contract for unincorporated Jefferson and Jean Lafitte, gave Councilman Chris Roberts, $2,500 and Capella $4,000. It also paid for campaign events for Lagasse, Roberts and Capella. All the contributions, save the Roberts event, took place in 2009 or earlier. Payment for Roberts' event, worth $2,394, took place in 2010, according to IESI's affidavit.
Roberts said he never spoke to the companies involved. He said he chose to start over on the recycling contract to avoid making the parish vulnerable to lawsuits. Both IESI and Richard's Disposal had protested the evaluation committee's rejections.
"My whole thing is we were hearing that this thing was going to enter into litigation," he said. "The last thing we wanted to end up was in a fiasco with recycling, and I think that's the direction this was heading."
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Richard Rainey can be reached at rrainey@timespicayune.com or 504.883.7052.