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Orozco, Norma From: Lori Karaguezian <lori@karaguezian.com> Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2021 5:47 PM To: eComment Subject: Public Comment Hello Councilmembers, I am writing to express my concern about how things went down with the award of the City's trash franchise agreement. I was surprised when Council moved away from the staff recommendation to award the contract to Athens. The reasons Councilmembers provided for their decisions to shift toward Republic Services didn't seem convincing or compelling to me. During the motion to award,the contract to Republic a Councilmember said that Waste Management has done a great job for 16 years but it's time for a change. Change for the sake of change is simply not a good reason. A Councilmember said Republic Services offered great benefits to their employees. Well, we recently saw how their employees staged a strike so they probably weren't too happy with their benefits. Another Councilmember said that Republic was the only one whose employees were unionized, but other bidders had offered to allow their employees to unionize. A truly progressive Council would have jumped on the opportunity to create more union jobs but you passed on that opportunity which could have been part of your legacy. Republic wasn't even the most "green" of the options so I simply walked away from watching that Council meeting unable to understand why Republic Services? I wondered if something else was at play here, but since I respect and trust this Council and your decisions I didn't go digging until recently at a community event I observed how chummy a Councilmember was with employees from Republic Services. After that day I did do some research and I was beyond disappointed to see that a number of Councilmembers had in fact accepted campaign contributions from Republic Services. Now I get why you all ignored the great work Waste Management has done for 16 years, I understand why you ignored how green CR&R is and I see why you ignored staff s recommendation to select Athens. You were supposed to be better. You were supposed to be different. I took the time to reach out to a couple of you individually about this matter. Unfortunately, neither of you took the time to reach out to me which solidifies my belief that you know what you did was unethical. Choosing to award such a hefty and lengthy contract based on who lined your pockets wasn't what I expected from this Council. I implore you to accept this huge misstep on your parts and do better by revisiting this matter and choosing the hauler that's best for our residents, businesses, and City while you still have that opportunity. Thank you, Lori Karaguezian Morning Sunwood resident i