[RP TownTalk] Question about Trash Pickup

[Dwight Holmes]

Bob, our service has been pretty reliable, as far as I recall. We're
also on Riverdale Rd in the 4700 block.  There may have been a miss
here and there over the time Bates has had the contract, but nothing
systemic.

But I do hope the town is monitoring and evaluating the contract
carefully.  Privatization has been popular at all levels of government
over the last couple of decades, fueled by the reasonable desire to
make best use of taxpayer dollars, and a strong belief that the
private sector does things better.  There is a growing, documented
awareness now that this is by no means always the case, and many
school districts, municipalities, etc. are now "insourcing" services
that they had outsourced to private contractors previously.  Reasons
vary, but often include "expected cost savings were not realized," "it
takes much more time and effort than anticipated to adequately monitor
the contract,"  and "quality of service was not as good as when we did
it ourselves."

I don't know if any of these problems apply to our town's contract
with Bates, but it would be good to know that it's being monitored.
Surveying residents about their satisfaction with the service would be
a good place to start.

On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 10:18 AM, bob smith <sfmc68 at verizon.net> wrote:
> Happy weekend - I am just curious about how many folks and how often Bates
> misses your trash pickup.  A serious majority of the time, I have my trash
> out before 5 AM, and some times around 7PM the night before, and my trash is
> picked up during the time I am out of the house.
> Very seldom do they miss snagging the trash by 5PM. The teams always seem to
> do a superb job so that the Missed My Trash episodes seem to stick out, in
> my case, maybe 3 to 5 times since Bates has had the contract, not a
> statistically significant count!
>
> Now, I understand, we all have varying loads of stuff to go - and that can
> fill up a truck on a route, and Bates has to dump, putting them behind on
> our perceived schedule.
>
> BUT - I keep hearing some folks have a consistent Monday trash miss, getting
> it out on time, and still not picked up.  Is this a common problem? Is there
> something about where the containers are visible or something (ahem, I know
> I miss stuff right in front of me when I look for it!)?
>
> So, just asking.
> thanks
> bob
> 5001 riverdale road
>
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