Dive Brief:

• Pitkin County leaders in Colorado are moving toward privatizing operations at the county landfill. And some contractors who submitted bids to do the work have criticized the move.
• Speaking after a meeting during which county commissioners gave staff the OK to begin privatizing landfill operations, current contractor Heartland Environmental Services’ owner Larry Giroux said it seemed that county officials already had made their decision.
• Brian Pettet, public works director for Pitkin County, said the process was closer to a "privatization question." The county has privatized the recycling program at the landfill, which helped improve operations, he said.

Dive Insight:

Privatization can be smart and can work, but certainly not always. And government decisions allegedly not reached in a public forum can sometimes have ugly legal consequences.