By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
City officials say they’re keeping an eye on the company that collects trash and runs the landfill to make sure local customer service doesn’t lapse in the wake of that company’s recent bankruptcy filing.
Red River Waste Solutions, the company that currently holds the contract with the city for weekly household garbage collection and for operation of the city’s landfill, filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in a north Texas federal court on Thursday.
“All we’ve gotten from Red River at this point is a notice, like everybody else, that they filed Chapter 11. I’m waiting today for our legal counsel to reach out to Red River to get a statement from them, basically some assurances,” Interim City Manager John Sheedy told the 830 Times Tuesday morning.
“It’s frustrating for me, and I don’t mind saying it, that we find out about this in the news, and we haven’t received a call. They haven’t taken the time to reach out to their clients and give us some assurances or talk to us about what’s going on,” Sheedy added.
He said he has had no communications with Red River representatives, adding the city is in the same position as all of the company’s customers in Del Rio.
“As far as right now, everything is status quo, the same as always. They haven’t told us anything’s going to change. I understand that they are continuing, that’s why in our press release last week, we asked customers to continue to call the Red River number if they needed information,” Sheedy said.
“At this point, we just don’t understand what that restructure will look like or if that will impact their ability to continue with our contract. We just don’t know at this point, so that’s the next step: We need to find out,” he added.
Sheedy said he anticipates having more information from the city’s legal counsel soon.
He also noted the situation will be further discussed at the next city council meeting.
“We’ll talk more about it. We have already done some legwork to stand up with a contractor, an intermediary, if that becomes necessary, for us to handle this, but that’s worst-case scenario, to make sure services aren’t impacted. We have done some research, and we’ve been in communication with some consultants to make sure that we’re prepared for whatever may happen. We just don’t know what that’s going to be right now,” Sheedy said.
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