MOULTRIE — Supporters of a private garbage contractor whose operation recently was shut down heaped piles of criticism Tuesday on Colquitt County Commission.

The county sent letters in December to customers served by the private company saying that it would be taking over the route of the roughly 200 customers. It also sent correspondence to Larry Richardson, who had been operating the route after company owner David Yarbrough had a second liver transplant.

Commissioners listened to the pleas from customers, of whom about 100 showed up for the meeting, filling the meeting room chairs and standing along the walls.

On Wednesday, private company customer Dea Fountain said she was disappointed that commissioners did not take a vote on whether Yarbrough, whose health will not allow him to continue the route, would be allowed to sell his business to Richardson.

The garbage collection route, which predates by four years the county’s entry into garbage collection in 1994, was sold to Yarbrough after the original owner had a heart attack.

Fountain said that Richardson should be given the same opportunity.

“I think everybody there felt brushed off,” she said. “We don’t know if they’re going to talk about it or what the process is. A lot of people are just really upset about how the county handled it.”

Fountain said that the private company gives service that the county does not, such as picking up garbage out of her garage.

“Dogs turn over the trash cans,” she said. “In the county dogs roam everywhere. I know they can’t help that, and the county can’t go to everybody’s garage. But private people can do that.

“We took the initiative of getting garbage service before the county started it. It’s not costing the county to get this service. Free enterprise should reign first. These two private businesses were here first. The county should not be in the business of buying private businesses. That’s certainly not a good use of tax money.”

At Tuesday’s meeting, County Attorney Lester Castellow said that the issue boils down to county control of the solid waste stream and complying with state and federal regulations. At the time the county got into residential collection in 1994 it allowed the two established collection companies to remain in business.

The idea was that as customers dropped off those services the county would pick them up, which has not happened, Castellow said.

And, he added, a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court decision allows a county to maintain a monopoly and discriminate against a business as long as one private company is not favored over another.

Fountain said that court decision involved the disposal of garbage by two companies in New York who wanted to dump garbage in another state. And although the county won the case and the companies have to dispose of waste through the county they are still collecting garbage because that was not an issue in the lawsuit.

Fountain said she has asked an attorney about the issue, not with an eye toward suing the county, but to check whether her interpretation of the court ruling is correct.

Peggy Harold, who was a customer of Richardson’s, told commissioners that even if the county has the right to eliminate a company it does not mean it should do so.

“My feeling is, if we can do this do we have to do this?” she said. “Can we do the right thing? Let’s look at the ethical question of this and do the right thing.”