Talking Trash

After months of unsuccessful negotiations between Escambia County and the Emerald Coast Utilities Authority over the fate of the area’s trash, county commissioners decided to show up at the utility board’s May 24 meeting. It did not go well.

After an hour of stewing in the public gallery, the commissioners asked to be allowed to speak about the possibility of the ECUA partnering with a private company to turn garbage into a marketable fuel—a move that will divert trash from the Perdido Landfill and deprive county coffers of millions each year. Instead, ECUA Chairman Larry Walker called a five minute break.

“Larry, I can promise you when you’re in our chambers, we wouldn’t treat you that way,” Escambia County Commission Chairman Gene Valentino railed at Walker during the break, before storming out of the meeting room.

Valentino would return later and join other commissioners in urging the ECUA board to continue working with the county. In what would be chalked up as “threats,” the commissioners lobbied for further negotiations, offered the utilities board a break on tipping fees, as well as other incentives and hinted at a lawsuit if a decision was made to sidle up to Southern Waste Recovery.

“We’re not here arguing, we’re not here begging,” Commissioner Wilson Robertson told the board. “We’re somewhere in between.”

The commissioners failed to sway the ECUA board, which voted 4 to 1 to pursue a 15-year contract with SWR.

“We have an opportunity to take action on something that is both good for the environment and good for the economy,” said ECUA board member Lois Benson. “What’s not to love about the ability to direct all this waste from the landfill?”

Dale Perkins cast the lone no vote. He told his fellow board members that the ECUA should continue trying to work with Escambia County, describing the decision to contract with SWR as a “haymaker” and suggesting that the utilities authority should instead be “landing jabs” via a compromise-approach in pursuit of environmentally-friendly practices.

“We’re throwing a haymaker,” Perkins said. “If it lands that’s great. The problem is, it rarely ever lands and when it doesn’t you’re vulnerable.”

The possibility of a lawsuit didn’t appear to rattle the ECUA board. Chairman Walker noted that disagreeing parties needn’t “hate each other” and that “sometimes a lawsuit is the best way to find out what the situation is.”

He also touched on comments commissioners have made about the ECUA-SWR deal during public meetings, suggesting the officials “stop acting like children.”

“One had the famous quote that the people of the ECUA had to be either dishonest or stupid—that’s a direct quote,” Walker said. “The ugliness that has occurred so far has come not from us, but from the mouths of the county commissioners and maybe the county administration.”

Most of the county commissioners had left by the time the ECUA board made its final decision. The Escambia officials have scheduled a special meeting tomorrow morning to continue the discussion.

A lawsuit is one possibility on the table.

“I think that’s where we’re headed,” Valentino said this morning.

Tomorrow’s special meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. at the Ernie Lee Magaha Government Building. In addition to the ECUA deal, commissioners will also be discussing the U.S. Department of Justice’s recent report on the Escambia County Jail.