Two years ago, Gretchen Witmer ran for Governor of Michigan with a simple slogan: “fix the damn roads”. Two years later, she was on the shortlist to be Joe Biden’s vice-president.
Why do I bring this up? Because Simcoe County has its own version of “the damn roads” that need fixing – garbage collection.
It is unacceptable that our garbage and recycling collection is so trashy. It seems every few weeks, there’s a post on one of the local Facebook groups complaining that their waste collection was missed – yet again.
This has to be fixed; it’s rubbish.
As Mayor Rob Keffer said, "The waste pickup issues are very concerning, and our residents deserve better.” Mayor Keffer often talks about “getting the little things right” and waste collection is a prototypical example of a little thing that needs to be fixed.
Unfortunately for our Mayor, waste collection is a County responsibility. And the County blames the contractor, and the contractor blames staffing woes, in part on the pandemic. But that is a misdirection: the problems predated the pandemic.
As Rob McCullough, the County’s Director of Solid Waste Management (which has to be one of the better job titles I’ve ever heard), says, “Our collection contractor (Waste Connections) continues to have difficulty…These staffing level issues are compounded with necessary absences due to COVID-19 precautions”.
Quite frankly, this excuse making is trash.
For his part, County Warden George Cornell argued, “While both organizations have experienced challenges with this contract, our partnership with [Waste Connections] over the past seven years has brought value and service to the County and our residents. It has allowed us to keep our waste costs stable and lower than most regions annually”.
Is the Warden suggesting we are experiencing challenges because we’re doing this on the cheap? Surely that should be something considered.
More to the point, it’s time to quit the excuses and solve the problem (for any man who took gym at Bradford High in the naughties “solve the problem” will be a familiar phrase).
Other municipalities do not experience these issues with such regularity. What are they doing that we’re not? Why can County officials and this contractor not learn from other jurisdictions?
This is a serious issue. It needs to fixed, not managed.
The County needs to get serious and solve the problem with aggressive corrective action, oversight and follow through. The Warden needs to own this personally; the tone starts at the top.
If this were any other utility, customers would also rightly be asking for a “customer courtesy” refund. That measure, coupled with actually fixing the problem, would help.
