Well, Doesn't the Beat Just Go On. (Rhetorical. Not a Question.)

It was years ago that then Commissioner Bob Anderson took Chuck Ross and me on some "field trips" in the Village.  One was to the not yet redone Public Works yard.  On that yard, in addition to lots of debris, was a garbage truck that no longer worked.  We had two others, one of which worked intermittently, and the other of which "worked" all the time.  They were old, they needed repairs we couldn't afford, and the one that "worked" all the time also constantly leaked stinking garbage fluid all over the streets.  That's when we ran our own solid waste collection and removal program, that "worked" well for some people (especially the Village residents who tipped and gave presents to the Village's sanitation PW employees), and not as well for other people.  Our first professional manager, Frank Spence, who started with us in 2006, had neither the devotion (he was worried about his elderly mother, and he spent more time with her than he did at work with us, and he already planned to move to the Pacific northwest to be near his ex-wife and children after his mother died) nor the patience or bandwidth to deal with the solid waste issue.

But our second manager, Ana Garcia, did, and she got to work.  We were overstaffed, including with people whose job descriptions were hard to identify, and she began paring.  Or chopping.  Ana did Village finances and the functioning of the sanitation part of PW some big favors.  The employees who were made redundant no doubt didn't appreciate it, but Village functioning, and taxpayers, did.

Our third manager, Heidi Shafran/Siegel, took the deep breath, and lifted us out of a situation that was marginal, at the very, very best.  She encouraged us to outsource the whole function, which the Commission did in 2014.  We had a non-Commissioner committee of Village residents to review possible contractors, and the Commission visited with the front-runner (WastePro), and we pulled the trigger.  WastePro offered all of our PW sanitation workers full time jobs, as we insisted they do, for more money than we were paying them, and not one of them agreed to work for WastePro.  We ended our program, so the majority of them were no longer working for us, and I have no idea what they decided to do instead.  But that wasn't our problem.  We gave them the best opportunity we could, and better than they had here, and they weren't interested.  OK, none of our business.  We sold our trucks, and replaced our program with a much more efficient one, that had trucks on our roads fewer days of the week than we did, and it cost homeowners/taxpayers less than our in-house program.  Were there people who complained?  Are there ever not?  Certainly the people who had gotten special treatment in exchange for tips and gifts complained.  But that wasn't our problem, either.

Our contract with WastePro eventually expired, and we went month-to-month at gradually and modestly increasing rates with them, because the Commission changed, and it was the nuclear explosion known as Tracy Truppman, and we no longer had competent management (Tracy fired whoever was competent, and whom she herself hadn't chosen), so we sort of limped.  But we were still getting our normal service from WastePro.  But then, we got another new Commission, we could finally make an attempt at rational functioning, and we could turn our attention to solid waste collection and removal, and WastePro, about which some Village residents were still complaining (whining?).

The then Commission, with or without the participation of whichever incompetent "interim" manager we had then, decided to switch to a different contractor.  They chose Great Waste, which is our contractor now.

Great Waste (both "great" and "waste" turn out to be interesting words here) quoted us a fee far higher than we were paying WastePro.  But "the times [and the economy], they were a-changing," and WastePro, which also bid to continue to serve us, also quoted us a much higher fee than we had been paying them.  I was not part of the Commission then, and I don't know whether with a nudge and a wink, we could have kept on with the month-to-month cheaper arrangement.  But we didn't, and we switched to Great Waste, and that's where we are now.

Well, you know, nothing is ever perfect, and some people will always have something to complain about, so we had our in-house issues, WastePro had its issues, and Great Waste has its issues (apart from the cost).  The one about which I had been hearing, and experiencing, is that for some unimaginable reason, the guys who work the Great Waste trucks roll garbage cans up to a few houses away from where they belong, and they leave them there.  So, some people wonder why there's a garbage can in front of their house, and it's not theirs, and other people wonder what happened to their garbage can.  Once you realize this is happening, you learn to check with your neighbors to find out who's missing a garbage can (the one that's now in front of your house, but it's not yours), or who has yours.

And then -- and this is sort of the main reason for this post, frankly! -- there's yesterday.  Yesterday was Tuesday, I live east of 9th Avenue, so Tuesday is my yard waste pick-up day.  Monday afternoon, I put out a pile of thin branches and palm fronds, and two containers of leaves.  My immediate nextdoor neighbor and I use the same small patch of swale for our yard waste.  I don't think he had any yesterday.  So, there was a pile, and two containers.  The Great Waste guys came by, emptied the two containers into the truck, and didn't touch the pile of thin branches.  Nor a similar-looking pile across the street.  This is a problem, because there is no reason to think those piles won't sit there for a week, and get added to next week, and no one wants a pile of yard waste on the swale/street for a week. So, I sent an e-mail to our Commissioners, asking them to get this resolved.  (It's also worth noting that yesterday was the last day of work here for Mario Diaz, who in my opinion, was a terrible manager, and who, as a parting shot to the Village, unilaterally gave Great Waste permission to increase our solid waste collection and removal fee by 20%.  Mario either didn't see any reason to leave a decision like that up to the Commission -- Great Waste is under contract, and we had no obligation just to let them increase the fee -- or hiring Mario, and giving him the resume boost that allowed him to make very much more money being CNMB's manager, was one of those good deeds that didn't go unpunished.)

Anyway, as I said, I reached out to the Commission to ask for help.  I got the help, very promptly, from Mac Kennedy.  He forwarded my e-mail to Great Waste, and they said they'd be back today to pick up what they left behind yesterday.  I never heard word 1 from any others of the Commissioners.

Mac argues with me when I say he's the only one who cares, and he's the only one who does the work of being a Commissioner.  He offers excuses for the others.  And I openly admit that I am so massively disappointed in and disgusted by our recent Commissions that I have stopped attending meetings.  But apart from Mac's protestations, I have no evidence that I'm wrong.

Mac's term ends in November of 2024.  I very much hope he runs again.  Art Gonzalez's term ends at the same time.  He's already said, at the outset, that his only ambition is one term.  I hope he doesn't change his mind.  Veronica Olivera's term is two years, and ends at the same time as Mac's and Art's.  I hope she doesn't run again.  If we can hold on to Mac, and get two more Commissioners who care about any of this, and are prepared to do the work, maybe we can become more fully functional.  I hope so.