A Tamarac City Commission meeting turned ugly Wednesday when Commissioner Elvin Villalobos said colleague Marlon Bolton had been bribed in exchange for his vote in favor of hiring a waste removal company.
“This commission is OK with somebody being bribed,” said Villalobos, who sought Bolton’s recusal on the waste contract vote. “This commission is for sale. That’s ridiculous.”
Villalobos made the accusation during the commission’s debate over whether to retain Tamarac’s longtime waste and recycling hauler, Waste Management, or replace it with Coastal Waste & Recycling.
With the current contract expiring, Coastal edged out Waste Management by one point in the city’s scoring process for proposals. Waste Management, however, beat out Coastal by several points on pricing. The pricing difference led city procurement officials to recommend that Waste Management keep its role and receive the new contract.
Going against the experts’ recommendation, Bolton and Commissioner Kicia Daniel pushed for Coastal instead.
The pair’s efforts led to a vote for the city to scrap the contract recommendation and go back to the companies for their lowest, final bid proposals. The move, supported by Vice Mayor Morey Wright, came after Bolton brought forward a motion to hire Coastal. That motion failed.
Villalobos and Mayor Michelle Gomez opposed the move to seek new bids and supported Waste Management for the contract.
Villalobos said Bolton’s vote was influenced by Coastal’s contributions to Broward Vision PAC, an entity tied to Bolton.
“This is unethical. This is corrupt. This is the problem that we have here [in Tamarac].”
Villalobos said Broward Vision PAC received $20,000 from Coastal between 2022 and 2023. Campaign finance records show Coastal made the largest single contribution to the PAC with a $15,000 contribution in February 2023. The company also donated $5,000 to the PAC in January 2022, according to the records.
2023 Contribution to Marlon’s PAC
2022 Contribution to Marlon’s PAC.
Bolton declined to recuse himself from the vote, stating his campaign had received money from all three waste companies that submitted proposals. He said political contributions do not impact his decisions.
“My decisions are never impacted by who gives campaign contributions or not … It’s not based on who supports who or what,” Bolton said at a workshop meeting Monday. “It’s what’s in the best interest of the residents.”
“Don’t sit here and bulls–t everybody,” Villalobos said.
Bolton on Monday listed the contribution amounts given to his campaign by the waste removal companies as $1,000 from Waste Management, $2,000 from Waste Pro, and $720 from Coastal. He did not say how much money the companies had contributed to Broward Vision PAC.
The PAC was created in 2020 by Trace Robinson using the same address as several Bolton-owned companies. Robinson and Bolton are listed as directors of Praise Experience Worldwide Outreach Church, of which Bolton is the pastor.
Bolton indicated he preferred Coastal because the company had won out on overall scoring. Daniel said she preferred Coastal due to complaints she said residents had made about Waste Management’s service.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Gomez threatened Villalobos with removal for his continued criticism of Bolton.
“If I get removed for standing up to corruption, I will be removed,” he said.
The estimated annual value of Tamarac’s residential solid waste and recycling services is around $12 million, according to city records. City documents detailing the procurement process and recommendation of Waste Management did not include the pricing estimates submitted by the competing companies.
The city contract with Waste Management for solid waste and recycling services began in 2011 and was renewed in 2019, records show.
The new contract would run for seven years, from October 2024 through September 2031, with an optional three-year renewal.
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- Kevin Deutsch is an award-winning crime journalist and author. A graduate of Florida International University, Kevin has worked on staff at The Miami Herald, New York Daily News, and The Palm Beach Post.
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