Houston recycling deal on hold after city controller raises questions

The future of a 20-year, $37 million recycling deal with the city of Houston is uncertain after City Controller Chris Brown declared in a December 11 memo that his office would not approve the deal until a further review could be completed, the Houston Chronicle reports.

Brown’s primary concerns were “pertaining to the transparency of the procurement process and the MWBE subcontractor's status as the defendant in several federal lawsuits," the Houston Chronicle says.

Regarding the transparency of the procurement process, Brown states that several sets of documents relating to the initial procurement proceedings were only kept on paper and were destroyed during flooding from Hurricane Harvey. Procurement documents were also only made available to Brown’s staff for review after “unusual” nondisclosure agreements were signed. Brown notes that no legal reasoning was provided for these nondisclosure agreements.

The contract’s winning bidder, FCC, Madrid, Spain, was chosen by the city in July. Since then, council members have questioned the details of the deal, specifically, the length of the contract and the circumstances surrounding the bidding process. It was the legal status of FCC’s subcontractor, however, that gave Brown pause. Brown notes that the subcontractor, Taylor Smith Consulting, Houston, has been a defendant in four recent lawsuits. Three of these lawsuits were brought regarding alleged infractions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

“In the interest of full transparency, I thought it important to bring these concerns forward,” Brown writes in his memo.

Brown offered no timetable for completion of the contract review.