The PTC City Council recently voted 4-1 against having a sole source garbage pick-up contract. Only the Mayor voted for it. The sole source provider had a quarterly fee with 3 choices- $63 (trash and weekly recycling); $75 (adding on yard waste, bi-weekly); and $86 (adding on bulk item pickup). This is detailed in a Citizen column (https://thecitizen.com/2026/07/13/peachtree-city-council-talks-trash-one-hauler-proposal-could-add-yard-waste-pickup/ ) A decade ago, I was a County Commission Chairman in another Georgia county. After a bidding process with exact criteria listed in an RFP going out to many firms, we did a “sole source” contract for garbage pick-up. The price went down and service improved because we were a larger client. It should here as well if the cities and county went this same direction, combining their volume in a group purchase to get a better price (for example, companies prefer 100,000+ customers county wide to just 35,000 in Peachtree City).PTC is facing this issue right now, so I will use them as an example. I’m aware that many PTC citizens want the ability to choose their own garbage service company. However, they may not be fully aware of how group purchasing works.As someone who spent decades in the field, working as a VP and SVP for corporations purchasing billions annually, I feel compelled to give PTC and county taxpayers a very short course in group purchasing.• Sole-source contracts are not necessarily good. Neither are they always bad.•…
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