Contract impasse could force halt in city recycling program. Mike Morris, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)
"They control the market. It's like a monopoly," Turner said of the Houston-based Fortune 500 company that long has held the city's recycling contract. "I support recycling. But asking people to accept a bad deal now and in the future is not good business, and I'm not prepared to allow the city to be hijacked by Waste Management or any one company. I want a good deal, but I also expect people to be good corporate citizens and not utilize their monopolistic status."
Poor Houston. Bilked and fleeced by none-other than the most devious monopoly ever created. A monopolistic force so vile, so clever, that it failed to foresee the commodity collapse and was forced to eat around $1 Million over the last couple of years because of a bad contract with the City.
All Turner is asking for is that they continue that money-losing proposition. Of course, he doesn't mention that part of the reason he wants Waste Management to operate at a loss is because the city has been mismanaged for so long that they are now looking at a deep short-fall in funds that threatens the patronage system that has been established.
The good news, if you're of a progressive, tax the crap out of everyone, lean, is that Turner can now use WM as the bad guy in two tax discussions.
First, he can take the realities of the recycling market, and the fact that some activists want recycling at all costs, and use it to justify his proposed solid waste tax. Yes, it will be termed a "fee" and will be foisted upon the public as the solution to all of the city's solid waste worries, but it will also create a huge revenue stream for Houston that will be largely collected from the pocketbooks of the poor and middle class.
Second, Wast Management's refusal to take a beating, and risk losing share value in the process, will be just another reason that Turner will use to float an ordinance in 2017 removing the city's pillow soft revenue cap.
It's one thing to keep increasing the amount of the budget shortfall (which is a classical political scare tactic FWIW) it's yet another thing to be able to point the finger directly at the bad guy, and put the blame for it on them. In this case a corporation who entered into contracts with the city in good faith, and houses its corporate headquarters here, is about to undergo the diminutive politician experience as it sees what passes for leadership in Houston throw a public fit.
A calculated fit, and a fit designed to provide them with some cover for the mess that they, largely, had a hand in creating, but a public fit that's designed, primarily, to convince those not paying very close attention that the City is an aggrieved victim here.
In one case however Turner is correct. We are dealing with a monopoly here. It's an organization that has removed choice from the citizens of Houston and trapped them into only having one choice for a variety of services that people outside the city frequently choose on the open market.
That monopoly is the City of Houston. And it's throwing a tantrum now that it can't get its way.
