Augusta commission waives $70K in trash haulers performance penalties

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF) – Coastal Waste and Recycling has been collecting the city’s trash for nine months, and commissioners say service is picking up.

“I’ve been pleased with Coastal. Every time I’ve had a problem, my constituents had a problem, they’re contracted, they’re right there. I think any time you change over totally to a whole city, you’re going to have some hiccups,” said Commissioner Tina Slendak.

But when starting last year, mistakes were made and under the contact, that costs the company money, for things like missed pickups and delays delivering carts

Coastal racked up $144,000 in fines the first three months.

But on the recommendation of the city engineer, commissioners voted to waive all but $70,000 of the fines.

“Work with them and do what we can we should compromise with them I mean for me I used to have a lot of problems and a lot of calls but I’m not getting them,” said Commissioner Catherine Smith Rice.

The vote was 6-5 for the waiver and some commissioners saying it was a bad call because Coastal should not be missing stops

“That’s the due diligence that you do when you bid for a contact and one of those is find out what it all entails and when you’re talking about picking up waste, you need to make sure you know where it’s all at,” said Commissioner Lonnie Wimberly.

Commissioner Jordan Johnson raised an ethics question, since Coastal made a $2,000 dollar campaign contributions to the mayor and other commission candidates.

“I didn’t get any money from them. I mean, they gave to several people, not just people who are currently up there,” said Commissioner Slendak.

As commissioners give $70,000 worth of grace to Coastal’s early mistakes.