Once again the City of Natchez is working from the position of, “Trust us, we know best.”

The City has refused to release information on requests for proposals from companies aiming to get the city’s garbage collection and recycling business.

Why they’re doing this is not immediately clear. City attorney Robert Latham suggested Tuesday that releasing details would harm the city’s ability to negotiate better rates with would-be garbage haulers.

But keeping a cloak of secrecy also allows public shenanigans to go on as well.

Already in this process we saw the city leaders curiously reduce the number of references interested companies had to provide as part of the bids, which seems suspiciously like a preferred bidder might not have had enough references to meet the minimum. Then, on top of that, the city foolishly opted not to require a performance bond as part of the proposals; something many of the largest bidders suggested is commonly required.

Given that aldermen and their lack of attention to detail last year caused the city to nearly not have a garbage collection arrangement set, the public is wise to question whether the city leaders should be allowed to vet and negotiate secretly.

We believe such proposals become public information as soon as the city accepted the proposals. City aldermen are, after all, representing the public’s interests.

By taking a closed approach to this very public matter, city leaders again flaunt their belief that the public really doesn’t need to know much about city government operations.

We urge city leaders to show that they care about transparency and allow the public to see the proposals well in advance of a decision being made.