When incoming Jackson mayor John Horhn takes the reins next week, he will have the power to renegotiate many of the city’s hundreds of contracts, but with a notable exception: The hotly-debated garbage collection contract.
Generally, new mayors and governing boards possess the power to void and renegotiate contractual decisions made by their predecessors. But this rule does not apply to contracts that are time-specified by statute, such as the six-year solid waste collection contract penned by the city last year.
Since the Jackson city council agreed to a $64-million contract with the New Orleans-based, minority-owned Richard’s Disposal in 2024, the city’s garbage contract likely won’t be reopened until at least 2030, after Horhn’s first term ends.
But the new mayor is expected to take a host of other contracts under review when he takes office on July 1.
Robert Gibbs, the chair of Horhn’s transition team, said they have obtained lists of hundreds of city contracts and grants to review with an eye toward efficiency and effectiveness but that it’s too early to say which ones could be renegotiated.
“For instance, when there has been a man shortage problem, (the city of Jackson has) been able to enter into contracts with companies that brought the man power and the know-how,” Gibbs said this week on Mississippi Today’s political podcast The Other Side. “As we’ve looked at those, some of those are working very well, and we may very well continue those. But in other instances, there’s been a loss of employees for whatever reasons, and those departments have to be built back up.”
Gibbs added the transition team has heard complaints from local contractors who feel the city has been unreceptive to doing business with them.
An attorney, developer and local contractor himself, Gibbs was involved in the yearslong dispute between outgoing Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and the city council over selecting a new garbage vendor, which spanned from 2021 to 2024. Gibbs’ company served as the minority subcontractor for Waste Management, the company that formerly held the contract and was vying for a renewal.
“You always hear about the dollar circulating in the community seven, eight times, and that’s important for your community to be profitable. But if those dollars go and leave your community, then you lose that seven or eight times effect,” Gibbs said. “And that’s what I’m afraid we’ve done with a couple of contracts in the city of Jackson.”
The pledge to review contracts has been welcomed by some city council members, including Ashby Foote, a representative for Ward 1 who has vocally opposed numerous city agreements in recent years, including the garbage contract.
“So much of this stuff has been outsourced because we haven’t had the personnel to do stuff that should’ve been done internally,” Foote said.
In particular, Foote noted that last year he voted with a majority of the city council to pay $700,000 to a local engineering firm for what he described as a one-year “contract to review contracts” in the public works department.
While Horhn will likely have the opportunity to renegotiate that contract early in his first term, he won’t be able to touch the garbage collection agreement without some effort.
In general, new mayors and governing boards in Mississippi have the power to rescind or modify city agreements, because that is what they’ve been elected to do, said Pieter Teeuwissen, a Hinds County Court Judge.
But that rule does not apply to certain time-limited obligations that governments can enter, such as the issuing of municipal bonds, the leasing of sixteenth section lands or the collection of solid waste.
“The general rule is you want to give each successor governing authority as much opportunity as possible to have a say in the business of the city or county,” Teeuwissen said. “But the legislature in its infinite wisdom has decided that certain types of contracts ought to carry a specific time. Someone who is buying $40 or $50 million in government debt doesn’t want to have to worry every four years that they’re gonna get canceled.”
The rules around time-limited contracts were the subject of a lawsuit that Teeuwissen brought against Hinds County for terminating his contract as board attorney before its one-year period expired. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with him.
In the case of solid waste collection, state statute permits municipalities to sign six-year contracts, with options to extend the contract through four additional one-year periods.
This could be because garbage collection is considered an essential city service, Teeuwissen theorized, but he noted that almost any contract can be renegotiated if one party is intent on it, even as these laws are poorly understood by many attorneys in Mississippi.
“A good lawyer and a good set of facts can get you out of almost anything,” he said.
Marcus Wallace, a well-known city subcontractor, ran for mayor in the Democratic primary in part because he was unhappy with Lumumba’s approach to contracting. He said he’s hopeful the incoming administration will prioritize local contractors who can keep the city’s money in Jackson.
“Let the big companies pave your State Streets and your Northside Drives and Woodrow Wilsons, but when you go into these neighborhoods and these smaller streets – like a Valley Street – allow the smaller companies to do those jobs,” he said.
“We gotta start peeling back the layers to help businesses grow, and I really think Mayor-elect Hohrn is gonna do that part,” he added.
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