At its regular meeting today, Historic City News local reporters watched as the St Johns County Board of County Commissioners took action to address the concerning performance of its solid waste provider, FCC Environmental Services.
The County Attorney’s Office was directed to proceed with termination of the FCC contract after the Board unanimously voted to declare a local state of emergency in garbage collection service for residents.
“The County has heard from our community about their disappointment and frustrations with FCC,” County Administrator Joy Andrews said. “Today, our leadership took bold, aggressive steps to clean up this mess.”
Under the current contract with FCC, the Board’s decision to terminate does not alleviate FCC’s responsibility to continue providing services under the current contract. The County plans to immediately solicit interim service providers to supplement services provided by FCC in the meantime.
The BOCC also unanimously approved St. Johns County Emergency Order 2024-2 to use all available resources to get yard waste picked up and off the streets as soon as possible.
The local state of emergency is necessary pursuant to Chapter 252, Florida Statutes, and St. Johns County Ordinance No. 2021-4, which resulted from FCC’s failure to collect all household trash, recycling, and yard waste. The emergency order is to prevent a serious threat to public health and safety.
Under the current local state of emergency, the deadlines for the two current Requests for Proposals will be shortened.
A new journey begins to regain the confidence of our community when it comes to reassuring them that their trash will be picked up when it should be picked up and that they will receive the quality customer service they deserve, according to Andrews.