NATCHEZ, Miss. – Adams County supervisors meeting Monday did not formally discuss the ongoing legal dispute with the county’s garbage collector, but board President Kevin Wilson expressed hope the judge overseeing the case will quickly decide the contract can be nullified because of the company’s poor services.
However, Wilson said he fears the case will be a protracted fight that’ll take much time to resolve in Adams County Circuit Court.
In a 2-1 vote in March, county supervisors decided to sue United Infrastructure Services of Louisiana amid complaints about poor service and it being inadequately insured, registered and licensed to do business in Mississippi. The vote was taken after supervisors closed the public out of their meeting and without board members Angela Hutchins and Ricky Gray being present.
Attending the March 3 Board of Supervisors meeting were members Kevin Wilson and Wes Middelton – outspoken critics of UIS – and Warren Gaines, who’s been allied with Gray and Hutchins in wanting to retain the New Orleans-based garbage collector.
The subsequent lawsuit filed in March on behalf of the board in Adams County Circuit Court alleges United Infrastructure Services has breached the contract with the county because of poor services that includes missed trash pickups and substandard garbage trucks that frequently break down.
While Wilson expressed hope a new garbage collector can be hired soon to provide better service, that will likely be stalled as UIS fights attempts to nullify its contract with Adams County.
The Board of Supervisors hired UIS in 2023 to serve the 5,700 or so households outside Natchez with twice-a-week garbage pickups. That $2 million-a-year contract with UIS was followed by a $20-a-month garbage tax increase on county residents, raising the monthly rate to $35, or $420 a year – $240 more than what county residents were paying prior to 2023.
Meeting last November with the Board of Supervisors, UIS CEO Jimmie Woods said “we’re (not) perfect, … (but) we have steadily increased our efficiency.” He pointed to various improvements, such as bringing three new trucks to Adams County. With that, he said, “the calls (of complaints) have gone down substantially.”
UIS employees, he said, strive to “bend over backwards to try to accommodate” Adams County households.
Woods’ parents are from Adams County’s Sibley area and moved to New Orleans in the 1950s, where the Woods’ family business grew to construction, trash collection and real estate development – considered among the South’s leading Black-owned businesses. The company did go bankrupt in 2022 but was reorganized into what UIS is today.
Comments