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Well, what can City Hall do about the mounting bills that it hasn't paid to Waste Control? That's what we asked Mayor Darrell Bradley today, and he told us that basically, the council is broke, and can't meet its debt to BWC until after the tax revenues come in during the first quarter of 2013. Here's how our conversation went with him on the topic:

Mayor Darrell Bradley
"Nothing that they can say I will have any difficulty with. Nothing that they say I will dispute. Nothing that they say we will say it's unreasonable. The reality is that a past City Council signed these exorbitant contracts that I inherited and we do not have the money."

"I don't know the exact figures that they are owed. I know that being 15 weeks in arrears sounds about correct and my position is that they are entirely correct. The City Council has a contract with them. They City Council owe them the money. We recognize that we owe them the money. I have repeatedly said that the situation is not a situation of the arrears, the situation is more of structural and its more systemic in that we pay 45% of every dollar that we collect to sanitation services and that is too much. I have traveled to many cities in the region and far away and I have always asked about what they spend on garbage collection because we are always looking at more efficient and cost effective ways of doing it and its between 15% - 20%. The reality is that we just spend too much. At the end of the day after I pay salaries and after I pay for sanitation services the City Council is essentially broke."

"I recognize that we have this arrears situation with them. It's a situation that I have inherited. It is a situation which I will more than likely leave at City Hall."

Daniel Ortiz
"Not being paid for 15 weeks which is equivalent to 4 months and being expected to continue to work, it seems, it alien, you delay a payment for someone for what is owed to them for one day and they are outraged."

Mayor Darrell Bradley
"I am very mindful as it relates to employees. I recall that earlier that I had a conversation with one of their senior representatives, I assured her that at that time we were going to make 3 weeks back payment particularly because we were concern at it relates to the employment status of their personnel. We did not want people to be dislocated and to be out of work especially around the Christmas season."

"We have given assurances all along to them and I had indicated this previously; the City Council has the money to pay them. We just collect that money in the months of January, February and March. Every year we have a slow season, every year we run into arrears, every year we have a shortfall and every year in the month of January, February and March we make good on those payments."

Daniel Ortiz
"What will happen if they decide that they will withhold services?"

Mayor Darrell Bradley
"If they withhold services, we will ensure that as a matter of priority that we go and we pick up the garbage. We can do that service for far cheaper than they do it and that's something that we are prepared to do and I would want that."

One of the biggest criticisms that has been brought against Mayor Bradley is that his explanation of the council's inability to pay has always failed to take into serious consideration that the creditors of those his council owes are expecting them to meet their debt obligations. That's one matter he took issue with today, during our conversation on this ongoing garbage debacle. Bradley says, whatever financial issues that BWC is experiencing, has been carefully considered by him. They fact, according to him, remains that they can't pay with funds they don't have:

Mayor Darrell Bradley
"Nothing that they can say is unreasonable. You don't have to explain to me that when I don't pay a bill to a supplier, every person that that supplier owes likely gets a feeling and there is a multiplier and a trickle-down effect - that's common sense, that's rational. I am explaining to you the reality that we have at City Hall and what we need to deal with and that we have made assurances with them. What you are telling me is not news. What you are telling me is not something that happened only this year, but I know as Mayor we have many different commitments that we have undertaken and we will make good on all those commitments."

"The reality is though that we can't make blood out of stone. We can't do any much more than what we are doing. We understand their position, it is not a position that we would want to be in. But the reality is that we are approaching the ending of the year and that's our heavy season and we intend to settle them first and foremost when we get our resources."

"I have a business myself, I am mindful of people who owe me and the impact that that causes me when they don't pay, so nothing that they say is unreasonable or unfair or something that I haven't thought about."

And as we've told in the past few months, Belize Waste Control initiated contempt proceedings against Mayor Bradley for a 2.3 million arbitration award that has been outstanding for over a decade. In the end, the attorney for both sides decided that the matter should be settled out of court, instead of trying to press Bradley to pay up or face going to jail. In light of the current impasse between the council and BWC, Bradley told us that this outstanding quarrel between them is soon to be resolved because City Hall will pay the debt off once and for all. Here's how he explained it:

Mayor Darrell Bradley
"I heard that they've said on the media that they have a worse relationship with this City Council. I could take that as a comment, but the reality is that they have a judgment with the City Council that no Mayor has paid off in 10 years. We are in a year and a half, we have a $620,000 payment that due to them on December 20th - I have to find that money. We are going to pay off that entire judgment when former mayors have simply just ignored it and left it so that it can go. The significant of that judgment is the interest. Previously, that was irresponsible in not dealing with that situation to allow that because of course if they had service that debt, we would have had more money so that we could settle them."

"We are working with them in relation with dealing with this arrears situation. I have made commitments to them. I fully intend to undertake and to carry through those commitments and we have done that in the past and there is no indication that we won't do that again going forward from January. As we get our inflows, one of the first people we pay is them."