Talk politics.

As far as I know this is called a concession. The services are done by private contractors but still the work is funded and ordered and supervised by the local government. We have many things this way here - from public transportation to the electricity network to the trash collectors to most soccer stadiums. They're owned by the municipality but that doesn't mean the municipality can't temporarily give them for use by private entities. As opposed to selling them to private entities who can later do with the assets/services whatever they want.