Sunday, May 15, 2011
The privatization of the Welsaco sanitation services
By Raul Garcia Jr.
The city of Weslaco has been in financial crisis for the last ten years and after giving up their Sanitation services in June 2010 to privatization their general fund shrunk, employees were lost and the city has been bleeding.
Weslaco City Commissioner Rene Rodriguez said, “If we have the right staff, the right equipment, then there is no reason for privatization if we can do the job in house.”
Rodriguez said the department was making over $300 thousand or more a year and it had several employees that had been loyal to the city that lost their jobs.
Weslaco has had five city managers and at least four of those have had to oversee the possibility of privatizing the solid waste garbage collection since it was first introduced at the June city council meeting by then former City Manager Anthony Covacevich. Next interim City Manager Frank Castellanos helped preserve the sanitation services and in June 15 City Manager Leo Olivares was given permission to enter negations with BFI Waste Services to amend their existing contract to collect the solid waste in the residential and commercial areas of the city of Weslaco.
Former Weslaco City Commissioner Larry Cardenas said over the last ten years since he left office the city has squandered the reserve fund, we've lost good employees and the city doesn't have the money to pay for basic services its citizens deserve.
"They [city council] gave the contract away without going out for bids," Cardenas said. "That was a $2 million dollar enterprise fund and we're only getting $200,000 dollars in return for that contract and as soon as that happened we had to layoff all the employees."
The city of Weslaco has been in financial crisis for the last ten years and after giving up their Sanitation services in June 2010 to privatization their general fund shrunk, employees were lost and the city has been bleeding.
Weslaco City Commissioner Rene Rodriguez said, “If we have the right staff, the right equipment, then there is no reason for privatization if we can do the job in house.”
Rodriguez said the department was making over $300 thousand or more a year and it had several employees that had been loyal to the city that lost their jobs.
Weslaco has had five city managers and at least four of those have had to oversee the possibility of privatizing the solid waste garbage collection since it was first introduced at the June city council meeting by then former City Manager Anthony Covacevich. Next interim City Manager Frank Castellanos helped preserve the sanitation services and in June 15 City Manager Leo Olivares was given permission to enter negations with BFI Waste Services to amend their existing contract to collect the solid waste in the residential and commercial areas of the city of Weslaco.
Former Weslaco City Commissioner Larry Cardenas said over the last ten years since he left office the city has squandered the reserve fund, we've lost good employees and the city doesn't have the money to pay for basic services its citizens deserve.
"They [city council] gave the contract away without going out for bids," Cardenas said. "That was a $2 million dollar enterprise fund and we're only getting $200,000 dollars in return for that contract and as soon as that happened we had to layoff all the employees."
# posted by Raul Garcia Jr. @ 7:44 PM 
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