The ongoing feud between the Jackson City Council and Mayor Chokwe Lumumba over who will pick up garbage in Mississippi’s capital city dating back to 2021 has seemingly come to an end with all parties agreeing to name Richard’s Disposal the primary trash collector.
In a 4-3 vote on Tuesday, the city council narrowly approved plans to enter into a six-year contract with the New Orleans, La.-based waste disposal company ahead of the emergency contract granted to Richard’s less than one year ago expiring.
In the original proposal submitted by Richard’s Disposal, the city would pay the trash collection company $891,000 per month. Included in that sum was the cost of supplying up to 45,000 garbage bins to residents. The council approved a motion to remove the carts from the equation, lowering the total cost of the contract by an estimated $4 million. Now the garbage operator has to accept the council’s proposal before certifying the deal.
Councilmembers Aaron Banks, Angelique Lee, Brian Grizzell, and Virgi Lindsey gave the contract the thumbs up. Meanwhile, Ashby Foote, Kenneth Stokes, and Vernon Hartley voiced their dissent.
In a rare move, the majority of the council ultimately acquiesced to the mayor’s persistent efforts to award a long-term contract to Richard’s Disposal. The two parties, in recent years, consistently failed to be on the same page when it came to selecting a trash collector for residents of the city.
The council, on numerous occasions, agreed to award contracts to Waste Management — the company that picked up trash in the capital city for 35 years. In contrast, the mayor was deadset on changing things up and giving Richard’s the green light.
After a years-long series of court battles, lawsuits, and a more than two-week period in which garbage piled up in Jackson with nobody collecting residents’ waste, the dramatic pursuit to select a company to run trash operations in the city appears to have finally been resolved.
