My Big Fight This Week with Roxy Ross

It was during the Commission meeting, and it started out as a point of agreement.  Somehow, it worked its way around to a dispute.

We were talking about the garbage.  Specifically, we were discussing when it could be placed for pick-up, and where it should be placed.  Come to think of it, Rox and I have had two big fights about the garbage.  When, and now where.

A couple of months or so ago, Rox proposed that garbage should be placed for pick-up as soon as 9:00 AM the day before pick-up (so Monday morning and Thursday morning), and empty containers should be removed by homeowners by 9:00 AM the morning after pick-up (so Wednesday morning and Saturday morning).  It seemed to me this left way too much time in the week (four days!) that containers could rest as a lingering blight in front of BP houses.  I said so.  I said no.  I proposed placement not before 5:00 PM the day before pickup, and removal by the end of the day of pick-up.  I got outvoted for two reasons.  One was that Roxy said that she likes the symmetry of the same number for the first placement hour and the last removal hour (9), and she thought it would be easier to remember, and the other was that she and others (she's very persuasive, in that charming way of hers) agreed (with each other, not with me!) that the hours I proposed wouldn't leave enough time and opportunity for people to be able to set out their garbage, then remove the empty containers.  I won't even summarize some of the ridiculous hypothetical examples of people who couldn't theoretically do this.  Just take my word for it: the others were wrong, and I was right.  But still, Rox and I fought about this at the meeting some months ago.

Anyway, this past Tuesday, at the Commission meeting, we revisited the matter of when the garbage could be put out, and empty containers removed.  Although I had already been outvoted on this matter, I thought I'd just take the last opportunity to harp, and wouldn't you know, Rox changed her mind.  Or, as we say in my business, she apparently overcame her OCD.  She agreed that we could switch the placement time to 5:00 PM the day before pick-up, and for whatever reasons, others generally agreed with her.  Or maybe it was always 2-2, and she was just the swing vote.  In any event, we agreed to change the placement time, and I agreed not to fuss about the removal time: 9:00 AM the day after pick-up.

Since I was on a bit of a roll, I decided to whine about the where of garbage pick-up, too.  This was also to address a point raised by Dan Keys, regarding how far back on the property garbage and containers could be placed. Dan's point, which was not technically wrong, was that if we use the property line as a standard (garbage and containers could be placed essentially on the property line), then those people with oddly platted lots, with property lines as deep as 30 feet from the street, could place their garbage that far back.

The easy way to solve this, which we soon enough adopted, was to say that the reference for where garbage could be placed would be the street edge, not the property line.  But I suggested one other possibility.  Because Dan theoretically had no complaint about how far off the street garbage could be left, and since some of our neighbors want pick-up so far from the street that it's in the side yard of the house, I suggested that we just use the street as a reference (no more than 10 feet from the street edge, was my suggestion), and eliminate side yard pick-up altogether.

This suggestion inflamed Dan, with whom I was also having a fight this week (I know, I need to see someone about all this fighting in which I seem to get myself involved), and Dan argued that side yard garbage and trash pick-up was a long-standing "right" of BP residents.  We discussed this further, and Dan was perhaps very grudgingly willing to understand that what he was describing was an unquestioned (thus far) tradition, not a "right."  But he and some others still held to the idea that it would be some sort of deprivation to remove from BP residents the opportunity to have garbage men waste their time collecting garbage and trash from side yards, then return empty containers there.   There was not even an attempt to describe the kind of person who could take garbage and trash from inside the house or from the yard, and deposit it at the side yard, but not take it to the "curb."

But in the meantime, Rox came to adopt the same ill-tempered and depriving imposition that I suggested.  She, too, thought we should eliminate side yard garbage and trash service.  That was the moment of agreement between us regarding that issue.  But the moment didn't last long, because Dan was making such a stink, and I could see I was outvoted on this matter and didn't need to stand on principle about it, that I told myself that I would just agree not to oppose side yard pick-up.

When the final vote on this whole matter was taken, Rox voted an emphatic "NO," Barbara Watts voted "No, but for a different [unrevealed] reason," and the rest of us (the boys) voted yes.

Roxy Ross is a genius of public service.  She has great instincts, works harder than anyone I've ever known, and is very nearly never wrong.  I hate going against her, especially when she's agreeing with a position I VERY recently took for myself.  But that's what happened.  And she later publicly scolded me for it.  Of course, she was right.  I lost my nerve.  I'm sorry, Rox,  As always, or perhaps very, very nearly always, you were right.