MASON CITY – As part of City Hall’s quest to implement “managed competition” for city services, the Mason City Council recently directed City staff to solicit bids from private companies to replace the current services provided by its own sanitation department.
The bids were due this week, and sources have told NIT that only one bid was submitted.
“I found out that (company name withheld) under bid the city of Mason City Sanitation Dept. with a bid of $8.80/month per household and yard waste pick-up is included in this fee,” our source revealed.
The source also indicated that this company, whose name NIT is withholding at this time pending verification of the bid, provides waste pick up in some neighboring communities and the monthly rate is significantly higher.
At the work session where City staff was directed to request bids, the City Council indicated a 10% monthly cost reduction from the current fee of $9.60 as one of its thresholds to consider dismantling the sanitation department in favor of a private company.
If the information submitted to NIT from our source is correct, the $8.80 monthly fee bid would not meet this 10% cost reduction requirement, which would be $8.64.
Another source who called our office on Friday had this advice for City Hall: “The next target for managed competition should be the City Administrator. Sure, he might be doing a fine job, but maybe it can be done better and for less than $144,000.”
Just what does who works for Holt have to do with this issue?? You people need to lay off the rumor mill and stick to the subject and the facts. The fat is, any outside company, Holt or another will not pass the smell test and be able to perform the task as efficiently as we have today with our city services. Our make believe city leaders need to stop wasting our tax money on this crap and get back to running the city.
This entire thing was engineered by Solberg and Bookmeyer; Holt was caught dumping in Northwood at night because he cannot dump at the North Iowa Landfill.
The beerman will not stop. I think he has it in for people that actually work for a living because he is to lazy to do the same.
I would bet the company that did bid will not provice all the services our sanitation department does. This unnamed company put in a bid but did not include everything that is currently provided now its time our elected officials put this to rest.
I agree we should put up city administrator job for bid, I am sure that there is someone out there that would love to have the job for half as much.Jim
I call this bid pandering. No private business can do this for less, pay the same wages and benefits, pay off loans, set aside funds for equipment replacement, and make a profit. The rate would have to go up as soon as the honeymoon period is up. I don’t like government handling things that private business could be doing, but in this case, I think our local government is providing excellent service at a great price. I wish they serviced businesses. The prices small businesses pay are really high. And then people come and dump all their extra garbage and cardboard in them. I love calling the police to report them. Yes, we go through the garbage and look for NAMES.
Well, my friend’s uncle’s wife (who shall remain nameless) told me that a certain unnamed blog owner in Mason City who calls himself a journalist does not like anything the city government does.
NIT, your caller is on to something here. Put all of bookie’s henchmen on the list of managed comp. Let them sweat it out and prove their worth. Let’s see if bookmeyer and tornquist and marinos and hickey and solberg are true to their word or just hypocrites.
I imagine it was Holt Services that submitted the bid.
Let’s hope it’s NOT Holt’s. I heard a rumor that they can’t dump at the landfill for not paying their bill. NIT needs to look into this and see if it’s true.
One would hope that Mr. Holt is no longer a city employee. I am sure they don’t wish further scrutiny into their business practices by the Iowa Attorney General’s office.
@ Anonymous: Why didn’t you send that suggestion privately to Matt? Why are you posting an unsubstantiated rumor about a private business on here? If it isn’t true, they can TRASH you in court.
@ Observer: I Googled and could not find any record or mention of Holt Services and the Iowa AG. If you have a link to what this is about, please post it, or is this another unsubstantiated rumor?
I gotta agree. Rumors are interesting but trashing businesses and people with rumors is unacceptable. How would you like it done to you?
I heard a rumor that ‘anonymous’ was a child molester that sneaks around at night peeking in little girls’ bedrooms and has been accused of having sex with girls as young as 7 yrs old.
Does Holt services still employee that sex offender that got caught running a illegal taxi service?
I cannot link to it’s status, but from what I was told, it is substantiated. I would feel uneasy if it had not been.
if holts bid it, we are in trouble, city hall get your heads out of your bookmeyers and end this nonsense.