City Council members on Monday night took a defensive stance after a resident inquired into why his trash pickup schedule had been changed.
John Roach, speaking during the public comments portion of the Conference Meeting at City Hall, said his trash day was moved from Wednesday to Monday and when he asked the (Waste Management) driver, he was told that the change came from City officials.
“Whose idea was it to mandate (change)?” Roach asked. “Did City Council direct anybody to do this? What did they mean by required or made to do it?”
Since he was the only speaker from the public, Council’s response came quickly.
“Since we privatized garbage pickup, people complain that there is trash pickup every day of the week,” John Canale said. “We charged the city manager (Martin Moore to look into it) so we don’t have garbage picked up every day.”
After Council President Eugene Jankowski noted that this issue was discussed at a public meeting, Moore provided additional details.
“We were approached with concerns that several streets had pickups four to five days a week,” he said. “The public works director and I sat down (to see) what schedules can help reduce that down to a couple days per week.
Moore said his communication with the four trash companies was positive with three of them indicating that something could be worked out.
He said that Waste Management stated they “will handle it with their customers, and hopefully other companies will be contacting their customers. The closer we get to one or two days a week on each street, the better off we’ll be.”
Jankowski said that the people on the trucks may not be aware of what their company has done.
“At this point, the complaining will continue and we’ll address them as we can,” he said. “We’d rather not have to make an ordinance … let them (trash collection businesses) manage themselves.”
Following the meeting, Roach seemed to be taken aback by the abrupt response, telling this reporter that he wasn’t really complaining but was looking for an explanation.
