By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
Despite assurances from Waste Pro that it was cleaning up its act, Chiefland City Commissioners Monday voted 3-2 to classify the company as a “habitual violator” for failing to pick up garbage on multiple occasions.
The term habitual violator means the city commission could vote to terminate its contract with Waste Pro if it is notified of another violation. The city must give Waste Pro 90 days of written notice before terminating the contract.
“By no means do I want to see you all going from the City of Chiefland but I definitely want to see some improvement,” said Mayor Chris Jones, voting with the majority.
Jones joined with Commissioners Lance Hayes and Norman Weaver to tag the company as a habitual violator. Commissioners Lewrissa Mainwaring and Rollin Hudson were opposed.
City Manager Mary Ellzey said female city staff members have listened to threats over the phone from residents angry about not having their garbage picked up and still having to pay their bills.
“We get people threatening to bring it here (to City Hall) and dump it on the lawn,” Ellzey said.
Waste Pro Division Manager Trip Lancaster said the big problem from the company’s perspective is lack of employees.
“It’s been an issue with manpower. Last week I was expecting to have three people show up that didn’t,” Lancaster said.
He said the process of hiring drivers takes a few weeks due to background checks but he said he anticipates having two additional drivers on the road in two weeks and two more drivers in three weeks.
Ellzey said the company’s failure to pick up garbage is nothing new. She said the problem has gotten worse since 2016. She felt the city needed to move forward with the habitual violator designation to accurately describe what the company is doing now and has done in the past.
“The bottom line is it has progressively gotten worse since 2016,” she said.
Weaver said he has personally experienced the lack of garbage pickup at his home.
“I experienced my trash not being picked up on a regular basis,” he said. “I can see the frustration of many of the people in our city about lack of proper refuse being picked up on a timely basis.”
Lancaster said it comes down to simple numbers. He said when employees surprise him by failing to show for work, his day changes from having a plan at 5 a.m. to not having plan 90 minutes later when the expected workers don’t show.
“We did have to bring in drivers from other divisions to stop the bleeding some,” he said. “We actually put extra folks in the commercial truck for when we pulled up to a restaurant or whatever business it might be, so we could take it all at one time; it wasn’t just dump the can and leave; anything they had we’d take to try to catch up as soon as we could.”
Lancaster said Waste Pro has been working hard to solve the problem.
“It was our issue that was created and it was our job to solve it,” he said.
Ellzey said commissioners discussed the missed garbage pickups at commercial establishments a month ago at their Jan. 11 board meeting. She informed Waste Pro official Dayna Miller at the time that if the missed garbage pickups continued the city would begin enforcing the assessment damages section of the contract. The company can be fined for repeated violations.
She said one of the latest violations occurred on Jan. 14 when a commercial customer complained about a 2-yard dumpster that is normally picked up once a week not being emptied on Jan. 6 or Jan. 13. After submitting the complaint to Waste Pro the company picked up the garbage on the evening of Jan. 14.
A big violation occurred on Feb. 3.
“On Feb. 3, a big area of residential garbage was not picked up. Waste Pro was able to pick up what was missed on the next day, February 4,” she wrote in the meeting agenda item.
She said in September of 2020 and April of 2019 the city experienced the same problems with garbage pickup. Waste Pro was notified on Sept. 16, 2020, that the assessment of damages portion of the contract would be enforced “in its entirety” for failure to pick up customer garbage.
Jones said in his view the city needed to take some action to show its citizens it is paying attention to the issues with garbage pickup. That’s why he favored designating Waste Pro as a habitual violator.
He said his original reason for voting to hire Waste Pro was because they employed many local people, but he said he can’t ignore the failure to pick up garbage. He said he has had several conversations with people concerned about the problem.
Hudson noted there aren’t a lot of garbage companies operating in the Levy County market.
“The other option is getting a garbage truck,” he said tongue-in-cheek.
“I want Waste Pro to keep the contract and pick up the garbage,” Hudson said.
If Waste Pro commits one more violation, the city has legal authority under the habitual violator clause to issue a 90 day written notice that it intends to cancel the contract. Ellzey said she would bring the issue back to the board if it gets to that point. The board would decide whether to cancel the contract.
Ellzey said she has already prepared bid documents to be mailed out to prospective garbage collection companies if the board cancels the contract. She said she also has a new contract ready for board review.
“We have to be ready to terminate them and have it ready to send out. We’re not going to sit here and not have our garbage picked up,” Ellzey said.
She noted that the Williston City Council has already mailed out bid documents to garbage collection companies after having problems with garbage pickup in that city. She said she read about Williston’s problems in Spotlight.
She said Chiefland isn’t unique in having problems with Waste Pro and the company’s failed garbage collection.
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City of Chiefland Regular Meeting February 9, 2021; Posted February 9, 2021
