Solway residents complain that the mulch facility run by Natural Resources Recovery stinks. But it may not smell any worse than the new 10-year contract the county may sign with the firm.
Not so fast, says Mike Cohen of Ackermann PR who represents NRR:
In case you read Cagle’s column, you might want some factual information.
He claims the process was rigged. Anyone who knows Purchasing knows they are straight arrows…maybe the straightest in Knox County government.
Here is some of what he cites:
"NRR has an advisory board of 10 members and the list (in its bid packet) includes Tom Salter, head of the Knox County Solid Waste Department, and Lynne Liddington, Knox County Air Quality Manager. These two also served on the committee that evaluated the bids for the new contract—they gave NRR high marks."
OK…some facts. No one was corrupted by serving on the Community Board which has met twice. Sharon Cawood attended the first…Lumpy the second. Frankly if you are going to try and have dialogue with the community, having Commissioners a part of it is important. It does not compromise them.
Still, let’s look at the votes. Lynn Liddington didn’t vote to award the contract to NRR. She was the one evaluator that scored another firm higher. And if you take Tom Salter’s votes out of the pool….we still win.
A competitor couldn’t win this fair and square and is now trying to use politics.
Cohen says Frank Cagle called just to give him a "heads up" about the article. "In other words," Cohen says, "the facts didn't matter."
Submitted by Tom Salter on Thu, 2008/05/15 - 3:15pm.
Frank's fact-checker must have been turned off.
John Evans died in October 2007, not December.
I worked for Keep Knoxville Beautiful, not Keep Tennessee Beautiful.
While I was at KKB, NRR asked me to write a letter addressed to "To Whom It May Concern" regarding their support of KKB's community programs. The letter did not endorse NRR for anything. The City of Knoxville "waste contract" process was never mentioned.
I actually gave two proposers a "high score" in the recent RFP process, not just NRR.
I attended one meeting of NRR's advisory board, the first day on the job as Solid Waste Director for the County. Since then, I don't think there have been any other meetings. To imply attending a one hour meeting on my first day at work would influence my ratings on something as important as the new greenwaste processing contract is insulting.
FACT: Cagle never contacted me or anyone else in Solid Waste or County Engineering to check on any of his "facts".
Frank's fact-checker must have been turned off.
FACT: Cagle never contacted me or anyone else in Solid Waste or County Engineering to check on any of his "facts".
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