Wait, what?

In their lawsuit on behalf of Gate City Waste Services seeking to enjoin Nancy Vaughan from voting on the waste disposal contract, attorneys from Kirkpatrick, Townsend & Stockton spend fifteen pages trying to make the case for why Vaughan has a financial interest in the outcome of Council's decision.

Then they ask the court not to require the plantiff's to put up security monies because, well, Vaughan has no financial interest.

Plaintiff requests that the Court dispense with any security requirement because the restraint requested herein by Plaintiff will cause Defendant Vaughan no material damage.

"This is not a debate over the vendor"—more Gate City contradictions

More contradictions from that full page ad by Gate City Waste Services offering us "The Truth About the White Street Landfill." Previously...

• Gate City said they were the lowest bidder? Not so truthful.
• Gate City said the process was legal and responsible. They've changed their mind...

...and now this from Gate City's lawsuit today:

[The] Council is holding a public hearing on September 20, 2011, on the very question of whether to make an award to Gate City. Members of the public are free to urge the council at that hearing to make the award to Waste Industries instead of Gate City, and the Council may still elect to do so.

Hold the phone. That is the exact opposite of what Gate City told the public in "The Truth About the White Street Landfill" ad:

The final step in the due process will be a public hearing on September 20. THIS IS NOT A DEBATE OVER THE VENDOR. [Emphasis and capitalization in the original.]

I don't understand. The ad promised us what Gate City was saying was the truth. It was a full page and everything...

More trash company propaganda contradictions

GREENSBORO, NC -- Yesterday, I wrote about a conflict with the facts in the full-page "Truth about the White Street Landfill" ad by would-be municipal trash contractor Gate City Waste Services. They claimed they were the lowest bidder. They weren't in any meaningful sense.

Another "truth" from the ad now comes into question. This by Gate City's own self-contradictions. From the ad: 

The process has been legal, responsible and extremely thorough.

Today, Gate City apparently has changed their minds and filed suit against the city over the legality of the process.

UPDATE: Here is a copy of the lawsuit.

Councilman Thompson defends trash company ad

GREENSBORO, NC -- Greensboro city council representative at-large Danny Thompson called to talk about yesterday's post "Would-be trash contractor misleads public with propaganda." He wanted to explain the justification for Gate City Waste Service making the claim in their full-page Rhinoceros Times ad that they were the lowest bidder for Greensboro's trash contract—a claim I found contradictory to the record.

As this blogger wrote, the Rhino Times and the independent engineering consultant hired by the City to evaluate the bidders' proposals both said Gate City Waste Service's bid was not the lowest bid, contrary to what Gate City said in their ad:

The Gate City response IS THE LOWEST bid received by the City for their waste. [Emphasis in original.]

Every bid included price components for various amounts and types of trash, allowing each bid to be evaluated under different scenarios. Thompson told me that we need to look at the line item in Gate City's bid that represents the cost for, what he called, "city-owned" waste. Although the term is not found in the independent engineering firm's evaluation of the bids or the City's request for proposal, Thompson defined "city-owned" waste as the minimum trash Greensboro is obligated to collect—the green residential cans, he said. No apartment dumpsters, no businesses. This amount of trash is, according to Thompson, 6,000 tons per month and Gate City's rate for the disposal of municipal solid waste in the range of 5,000 to 10,000 tons per month was the lowest.

 

So what Thompson is saying is that if you look at one of the pricing components of the Gate City bid, it is the lowest among all bidders for that component. But this line item is a single cost component of the entire bid and, when looking at the entire costs, Gate City is not the lowest.

The independent engineer evaluated the proposals by two cost scenarios, the first for disposing of all municipal solid waste (and all construction and demolition debris); the second for just city-collected municipal solid waste (and all construction and demolition debris). Under both of these scenarios, Advanced Disposal had the lowest cost, not Gate City and it was by this evaluation that City Council chose Gate City—although, one may legitimately wonder why the lowest qualified bidder wasn't chosen.

Would-be trash contractor misleads public with propaganda

GREENSBORO, NC --- Gate City Waste Service, LLC really wants to secure a contact to dispose of Greensboro's garbage in a reopened White Street Landfill. When the contract seemed in jeopardy because councilperson Nancy Vaughan's previously recused vote was put back into play by a decision from the city attorney, Gate City took steps to manipulate the process by adding items to their proposal that would likely, once again, prohibit Vaughan from voting, probably ensuring a city council 4-to-3-with-2-abstaining majority in favor of Gate City (barring lawsuits).

But Gate City wants us to know it has all been on the up and up and just to make sure we, the sheep, know it, Gate City took out a full page ad in the Rhino Times offering "THE TRUTH ABOUT THE WHITE STREET LANDFILL."

One of the "truths" offered in the ad is this:

The Gate City response IS THE LOWEST bid received by the City for their waste. [Emphasis in original.]

According the the Rhinoceros Times and the independent firm hired to evaluate all proposals, that is not true. Another bidder offered the lowest net cost.

From the independent evaluation of all proposals: