For the last several months township residents have had trash picked up late, pickup dates changed and sometimes no pickups at all.
In order to tunnel to the bottom of the refuse mess, trustees called a special meeting on August 8th, and invited Joe Sciarretti, regional government sales manager for Kimble. Kimble is the township trash hauler and recycler.
Sciarretti said he was at the meeting to listen.
“I don’t want to make any excuses,” Sciarretti said.
However, Sciarretti said staffing shortages throughout Ohio due to a variety of factors including Covid-19’s omicron variant and a general drop in the Ohio population, due to baby boomers not having children are causing some issues with many trash haulers.
“I’m well aware of the challenges and issues,” the refuse rep said.
According to Sciarretti company mandated vacations, overloaded trucks and time factors are also factors in pickup issues.
Residents were invited to voice their experience and issues to Sciarretti.
Resident’s concerns included trash not picked up for several weeks, trash not picked up at all, the potential of hiring part-time drivers and late email warnings from Kimble.
One resident said his trash has been missed and not picked up for several weeks.
“Is there going to be compensation on billing,” he asked. “How are you going to make it right with folks?”
According to Sciarretti compensation is an issue that must be taken up with billing.
One man told Sciaretti he has removed his trash container from the road after not being picked up for several days. The next day the driver made a pickup at 7:15 a.m., without the man’s knowledge.
“It gets to a point that this is happening too often,” he said.
Another man told Sciarretti that he is lucky if trash on his street is picked up every third week, including recyclables.
“And then when they pick up our recyclables, they just throw it in the trash truck,” he said. “It’s hardly worth recycling.”
One resident asked, “At what point do the trustees take the contract and put it out for rebid?”
The man said friends in neighboring communities are not having the same problems with competing trash haulers.
“Right now, we are stuck in a monopoly with Kimble,” the man continued, addressing the trustees. “You three take action and break that monopoly.”
Sciaretti answered, “No hauler is going to provide you utopia with the constraints I mentioned. “
However, the man, who said he has sent “a ton of emails” to Sciarretti, was adamant that the answer to the township trash issues is signing a contract with the competitor hauling trash in Sagamore Hills.
“Do I have to move to Sagamore Hills to get my trash picked up?” he asked. “Put it [the contract] up for rebid for non-performance.”
Another man, who said his trash and recyclables have been picked up, called Sciarretti out for deflecting negative comments on trash and recycling combined, by touting Kimble’s natural gas running vehicles.
“What does that have to do with this?” he asked.
Interim Township Administrator Jim Honsberger suggested Kimble could send late pick-up advisories or other issues to township officials to put on the website and notify residents.
“I’m happy to do that,” Honsberger said. “It’s an easy process.”
Honsberger said he had taken his trash out, and brought it back in, after not being picked up, he said. He added that while riding a bike through the township there has been trash left out for more than a week.
However, Sciaretti said the company does not always know when a truck is going to break down or any number of other scenarios are going to happen.
“We appreciate you have operational difficulties,” Honsberger said.
However, Honsberger suggested better communication from Kimble could let residents know in a timelier manner when a pickup will be delayed.
“We hired you for that service and we want that service,” Honsberger said. “And there are a lot of frustrated people because they are not getting that service.”
