Ballwin Alderman Compares Allied Contract to Haliburton

Alderman Shamed Dogan said the Ballwin board should be wary of potential no-bid contracts like the one recently presented to the board by Allied Waste, and compared the proposed 10-year deal with the waste collector to work given to military contractors during the Iraq War.

The Allied Waste proposal included a 2 percent rate increase in 2014, plus another 2 percent increase in 2016, a 1.5 percent increase in 2018, and 2 percent increases in 2019, 2021 and 2022. The City's existing contract, meanwhile, would increase rates by 4 percent annually over the next three years until it expires in 2015.

At the board’s April 23 meeting, following at an open hearing, Mayor Tim Pogue said city staff should contact Allied Waste and request a 7-year contract instead with optional 1 year extensions.

Dogan said last week that the board still should seek proposals from other waste collectors, some of whom already expressed an interest in working with the City.

“I see no reason why we shouldn’t bid it out, let these people compete,” Dogan told the board. “It’s the American way and it’s good government.”

Dogan said his concern for keeping the service competitive with other providers was partially due to opposition to the contract .

“If people take the time and energy to show their views, and they happen to all be united in one voice, one way or the other, I think that’s a representative form of government and it’s pretty incumbent on us to listen to that pretty carefully,” Dogan said.

An aversion to no-bid contracts should come as no surprise, he added, considering national sentiment against larger no-bid contracts at the federal level. While working in Washington D.C. under former Republican U.S. Senator Jim Talent around 2003, Dogan said he saw firsthand how public backing of the Iraq War began to waver when no-bid military contracts were reported.

“And one of the things I remember was that one of the first sort of cracks in people’s support for that war was the fact that the government was giving out no-bid contracts to Haliburton and all these huge defense contractors, with the justification that … they’re the only ones that can provide these services, and that turned out not to be the case,” Dogan said.

Dogan said an ordinance passed in 2010 by the Ballwin board also prohibited no-bid contracts, with few exceptions, none of which applied to the Allied proposal, he said.

“And right now, the Department of Defense reports that only 61 percent of their contracts are even bid out at all; (roughly) 40 percent of their contracts are no bid,” Dogan said. “And I really want us to be held to a higher standard than the federal government. I know we can do better than that.”

Dogan said he "found it interesting" that earlier at that same meeting, the board voted on five other contracts, which ranged in value from $9,000 in aggregate to approximately $125,000, all of which were put out to bid. In fact, Dogan said, one of those bids involved two other companies that expressed an interest in Ballwin’s trash hauling—IESI and Waste Management.

“Allied had to bid on this one year, one-time contract for $10,000 or less,” Dogan said. “Why on Earth would we not make them bid on a seven year, possibly seven-figure contract? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Following last week’s meeting, Mayor Pogue, who supported the original 10-year deal with Allied, said the board may consider a 7-year contract at the board’s next meeting.

“As I expressed before, at the end of the day Allied might offer the best bid,” Dogan said. “I have nothing against them. People on this board, especially the mayor, have expressed strong feelings one way in favor of Allied, but I think the good government decision is to bid it out to see where other people come in.”

The Ballwin Board of Aldermen is scheduled to next meet at 7 p.m. Monday, June 18 at the .