In the old days, with the old contractor, if you left out more than an estimated two cubic yards, someone would take a photograph of your estimated excessive leavings, the refuse would be picked up the next day or so, and you would be billed for the estimated overage. That is apparently not the new deal.
Now, my friend said, he left out what was estimated to be more than two cubic yards, he received a notice of a $50 fine, and he had to move all the yard waste back behind the house. No one picked it up, and no one was going to. Pick up the yard waste, as is the contractor's job, estimate how much more than two cubic yards it was, and the homeowner can argue if he thinks someone overestimated? Evidently not. And this is for substantially more money than we were paying about two months ago.
Someone does not have much of a sense of courtesy, or even decency, when dealing with BP residents/homeowners/taxpayers. We're now paying significantly more money for inferior and punitive, instead of helpful, or even accommodating, service.
"Great Waste," indeed.
PS: I don't know how to check this story without either simply believing that what my friend told me is true (which I do believe), or butting in to someone else's business, which I'm not going to do. I was just told this story in passing, and I said I would blog about it. My friend did not ask me to do that, nor did he request that I not do it. We've fallen far from the WastePro days, and it's costing us a premium to take the bumpy and injurious ride.
PPS: I urged my friend to go talk to Mario Diaz, who I hope will see to it at least that the $50 slap in the face goes away. This is not $50 to take away the yard waste. It's not $50 to take away more than the contracted amount of yard waste. It's a $50 punishment, for nothing, and with no adaptive component. And if matters could be made any worse, it appears to be our own Village that is punishing us. Great Waste had no reason to punish anyone. They just kept driving, and had less work to do.
Tell your friend to call me on my village phone, Fred. I'd like to hear this directly from the source. 305.213.5139. Not questioning what you're reporting to have heard. However, what you describe from WPro is not accurate based on my own personal experiences. They did not simply take oversized piles and send a bill.
ReplyDeleteI went through that exact scenario when Dan and I moved here, and we were told to move the pile off the swale until WPro gave us a price to remove it. Reggie (the then Code Officer) was the person who told us we would be fined if we didn't move the pile right then as we stood there looking at it while he measured it with a measuring tape to show us what 2 cubic yards looked like on the ground. He was nice enough to do that knowing we had just bought the house but weren't even living here yet. (If I recall we were working on the pile as he drove by.) WPro showed up shortly afterward (no idea if they made a special trip or happened to be in the village, but I think the latter based on my recollection about how quickly they appeared, again with Reggie) and we agreed to a price, which I think was $350. They told me to leave the pile because they would be back the next day, which they did. That's how I learned how the system worked, when Code came-a-knockin' on our door.
In the system you describe, I can only imagine how pissed folks would be when they left an oversized pile, it was hauled off, and then they received a bill that they didn't know was coming with an amount they never agreed to. The way you describe it, folks would leave piles that they think were allowed and would receive bills later. That makes no sense at all. That's system would have exploded a long time ago given the number of giant piles throughout the village on any given day. Our streets are looking like shit between piles and cans left out 24/7.
PS to your PS: We are not paying a "premium" for our new service with GW. We are paying the market rate for waste, which is higher than when the village contracted with WPro 7ish years ago. Costs for every service are higher, including waste removal. WPro also bid on our contract, and their bid was higher than GW's ... and the third bidder was even higher. We selected the LOWEST available 2021 price (based on the same parameters as the prior contract), which also happens to include some better service options including leaving yard waste in the new cans in addition to the pile on the ground. That means you can leave yard waste out twice weekly instead of just once as long as it's in the new, big can that can hold a LOT of loose yard waste. For the CURRENT market rate we are getting a bit of premium service that we didn't request. That's only happening because we got new cans to work with the automated trucks (which helped to keep the new price down considerably, BTW).
Mac,
DeleteClarifications much appreciated. Yes, I'll have him call you. It's been a while, and I myself never put out so much that I had to pay extra. So, it's not my personal experience, and I'm just reporting based on what I remember. As I'm thinking back on it now, it seems to me there may have been an in-between step, which would have been that WastePro would have gone back to the Village to report the "oversized load," and the Village would have told the homeowner/resident what the extra fee would be. Then, WastePro would come back a day or two later to collect the leavings. I myself always advocated that the waste should just be picked up on pick-up day, and the dispute about money could happen later. Because in the meantime, according to the old system, which you're saying is the same as the new system, while this dickering is going on, either the waste sits there in the swale for a couple of days, or the homeowner has to move it back behind the house, then back out again once a higher price has been chosen. You know, if this were Miami, or Hialeah, or CNMB, or Coral Gables, or someplace, I might look at it differently. But it's VBP, and we just don't have to be treated this way. It's sort of the whole VBP point.
As for your PS to my PS, it's hard to know what to make of the dramatic price increase. Our contract with WastePro ended a few years ago, and our then "Commission" agreed to short term contract extensions, each for more money (but not dramatically more money) than the last. I'm not in this any more, and I don't know why the next price increase, which is the present one, is suddenly so much higher than were the others. WastePro, which you point out wanted even more than does Great Waste, could have done this to us a few years ago, if that's just what it costs. And if it was what it cost, but they were just undercharging us for old times' sake, then why wouldn't they have continued to do that with the new contract proposal, or why wouldn't the Commission and manager have realized it's a lot cheaper to continue extensions than to enter into a whole new contract for very substantially more money? Did something (the cost of labor; the cost of gas; whatever) suddenly skyrocket for everyone?
By the way, it seems clear that little or nothing actually gets recycled any more. Can we stop pretending, and save ourselves one day a week of garbage trucks on the road, and the cost of the "service?"
Fred
By the way, Mac, regarding your third paragraph, it wouldn't be as mysterious and Kafkaesque as you make it out to be. First of all, everyone is given notice at the outset that the limit per pick-up is two cubic yards. Might they forget? Might they underestimate? Sure. But the other thing that happensas a way to explain that mysterious and unexpected bill, is a photograph of the pile, presumably with some visible measuring device to show that it really was that big.
DeleteNo, I wouldn't like it any more than would anyone else. But it's not a trick. It's like ordering a meal at a restaurant, and then getting the bill at the end, and thinking it didn't seem to you as if you ordered/spent that much. But look at the bill, see the items and their prices, grumble that you spent more than you sort of intended to spend, and think of how good were the meal and the experience.
Fred
The system has always been to haul it away and send a fine. If you are friends with our glorified homeowners association, they will waive it for you.
DeleteWhat is the justification for the fine of the only one inconvenienced is the homeowner who has to drag their trash back in? It is completely unjustifiable for them to a fine / charge for not providing service.
H,
DeleteI'm not sure what homeowners' association that is. I think the manager could waive a fine, and the Code Compliance Board can waive fines.
Also, it is the Village, not the waste removal contractor, that imposes the fine. So the Village does not impose a fine for not providing a service. It imposes a fine for the fact that the solid waste contractor is not going to provide a service. And if you think the solid waste contractor would at least haul away the two cubic yards they were prepared to haul away anyway, and the homeowner can drag the rest back, and put it back out the next week, you'd be wrong. Right that they should, but wrong that they will.
But you have glancingly addressed the main point I wanted to make: the convenience of the homeowner/taxpayer in this unique municipality. And really, what's the big deal? The people, like Mac and Dan when they were preparing to move in, or my friend who told me this story (and who said he will in fact contact Mac, as Mac invited/requested) who have a large amount one week, won't have that the next week. It's not a mountain of yard waste every week.
I don't mind that we have professional management, and I was in favor of outsourcing sanitation, but if this is what those who resisted were afraid of, it's a little hard to argue with them right now. In this very small community, where we should give each other breaks, and do something about the world's skankiest medians. But no. What we do is punish each other for doing a lot of yard work on rare or uncommon occasion. It makes the Village nicer. We should pay our neighbors, not fine them, for doing these big clean-ups.
Fred
I spoke with your friend and we had a great conversation about the situation. I also asked him to engage on the topic at the September 7 commission meeting when I have on the agenda a status on solid waste and our relationship with the new vendor. I asked our manager to invite our rep from the company there as well so we can all have a thorough conversation to discuss how it’s going and what can be better. It’s time to relegate trash talk to the back burner … but to do that we still have a few boxes to tick.
ReplyDeleteMost grateful.
DeleteSome thoughts:
ReplyDelete1. “Fines” are not applicable as putting out more than two cubic yards of yard waste is not a violation of a code. That service is actually specifically provided for in our code.
2. “Fees” on the other hand are what you pay for a service, the basic service and any extra services that you contract for.
3. The nature of the basic service should be known except that the Village has never clearly articulated what it is to its residents. The one pamphlet provided is misleading and or wrong. For instance, it mentions bundles of yard waste where bundling (tying loose debris together) is not required by our contract. It should be a simple process to read one’s own RFP document and then produce a clear elicitation of the rights and responsibilities provided to residents therein. Clearly, the contractor cut and pasted information into a document and provided it to the Village and the Village then failed to vet it for applicability to the Village.
4. I believe that excess piles of yard waste should indeed be documented (as you mention, Fred, people are advised of their rights to no more than two cubic yards of yard waste per collection) as to its dimensions and photographed and then picked up on the same day of collection. Said collection should then be invoiced to the property owner. Unfortunately, good advice was not heeded and the Village gave carte blanche to the contractor to charge whatever they want for the collection of that material (“presumably” less the two cubic yards you are permitted at a given collection.). There should have been a line item in the contracting process that specified a per cubic yard collection and disposal charge for the excess material. This is the system I put in place in Coral Gables to replace the “notice the resident first policy”. I informed the previous manager of this system and provided him with the spreadsheet that we used to document this process.
5. The costs are higher, Fred, because we required seven years (I think) of service at the same price with no increases attributable to the rising cost of living. I guess the Manager felt that this was advisable over the long run, but it likely resulted in higher up front costs than a contract with some automatic CPI increases built in.
Dan,
DeleteInsights and clarifications appreciated.
5. There were in fact yearly price increases specified in the original contract, and those increases were less controlled when the contract ended, and we asked for, and got, extensions. I still have no understanding of the dramatic cost increase that started on 7/1/21, and which Mac says was echoed by other contractors who placed bids with us.
Fred
Dan,
DeleteI no longer have a copy of the Codes. I thought the two cubic yards per week limit was in the Codes, but you're saying it isn't. (The place where it should be is in Code 6.3.4, and there is no stated limit as to amount of yard waste permitted.) I gather you would say it's just contractual with the companies we've hired. In any event, the $50 is without question a fine, imposed by the Village, not by the contractor, and that fine is imposed even when the contractor doesn't remove the yard waste. If you're saying that the Village is illegally fining residents for things that are not violations of the Codes, you might be right. Someone who got fined should protest.
Fred
Re # 5. In the new contract, the price is set for seven years except that the contractor can request that the manager approve and increase each year. The manager may approve or deny any request. Absolutely absurd contract language. Why would any manager ever permit an increase. Even so, there are no stipulations governing his actions as to doing so.
ReplyDeleteI also believe that the two cubic yard limit was at one time in the code along with other requirements. I couldn’t currently find that language either. It could be poorly placed in the fee schedule.
As to the $50.00 fine, one may be applicable in a case where a tree trimmer was responsible for the pile or possibly where the property owner did not, as required the contract, contact Great Waste to get a self deposited pile removed.
True. Most absurd. There should always be yearly increases, because costs increase, and not approving reasonable ones will lead the contractor not to want this contract any more, once it's concluded.
DeleteThis was not about a tree-trimmer. It was about people like Mac and Dan, and my friend, and me, and you, and many of us, doing our own maintenance, and leaving the results to be collected, as is available to us. Tree-trimmers, and other lawn care people, always or almost always include removal in the service.
Fred
Dan,
DeleteI also have to tell you a funny story. Some years ago, I had an appointment with a patient, and the patient arrived at noon. I had the appointment in my book for 1:00, and I couldn't get there earlier. So I suggested the patient might want to find something to do for the hour. When I got there, I expressed regret for the discrepancy, and I asked the patient if he got lunch for himself, for example. He immediately said no. So I asked him what he did for the hour, and he said he called his son, who was not far away, and the two of them got something to eat. I later pointed out to the patient that his reflex response -- he's typically very contrary about more or less everything -- was to say he didn't get lunch, when in fact, he did get lunch. He was not able to use this opportunity to expand or deepen his insight about his personality and way of reacting to people.
I tell you this story because when I first said the limit for yard waste pick-up is two cubic yards, you immediately said there is no such Code. When I then agreed with you, because I couldn't find it in the Codes listed on the Village's website, you countered with some hazy memory that "the two cubic yard limit was [perhaps] at one time in the Code," although you agree it doesn't seem to appear there now. But you wondered if it was in some other section of the Codes, like the fee schedule. You, like my former patient, seem to disagree with anything I say, even if it leaves you disagreeing with yourself.
Fred
Well, Fred, that is because you are often wrong.
ReplyDeleteNot "often," Dan. You didn't read carefully. Apparently, I'm always wrong. If I disagree, I'm wrong. If I agree, I'm wrong. And in your, or my former patient's, effort to point out to me that I'm always wrong, you and he even wind up declaring yourselves wrong. Which for both of you is somehow still a demonstration of how unwaveringly wrong I am.
Delete