JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – There's a fight over the city of Jacksonville's garbage situation that one council member said "stinks."
City Councilman John Crescimbeni told Channel 4 Tuesday night that the mayor's office is in a cozy relationship with a major trash hauler -- Advanced Disposal.
The city is in discussions about how much it costs Advanced Disposal to haul off trash and how much it should charge.
Crescimbeni said it looks like the city does a lot more to make Advanced Disposal happy than it does for the other trash hauling companies in Duval County.
"I have a lot of questions about ADS. I think it's way too cozy (of) a relationship," said Crescimbeni. "We deal with three residential haulers and it's always ADS, ADS, ADS. There's always these question marks and they're always about ADS."
The city is currently reviewing the rates paid to these haulers and Crescimbeni claims the mayor's office is changing the review process to accommodate ADS.
"It sounds like me ADS is not happy that they're not getting same markup that other companies are getting, but other companies are investing in new cans, etc. I'm tired of bending over backward for ADS quite frankly," said Crescimbeni.
"I'm confused and not quite sure what Councilman Crescimbeni is talking about," said the Mayor's Chief of Staff Chris Hand. "It sounds like councilman Crescimbeni is floundering here, trying to find an issue that doesn't exist. There's not an issue here, from admin's perspective. Our only criteria is what's in the best interest of taxpayers."
Hand said the administration has made no changes to the city's rate review policy to accommodate ADS.
"I actually stood at the podium today, Scott, and at no point during any of that time did Councilman Crescimbeni raise any of those concerns. So I'm not quite sure why he didn't raise them then, didn't have the courage," said Hand.
Channel 4 also reached out to Advanced Disposal about Crescimbeni's claims. A spokesperson for the company said, "We are abiding by our contract as written. All contracts are public record."
The spokesperson added that there have been discussions of ADS adopting some automated methods to save money, but there have been no official negotiations or changes made.