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Florissant Takes Meridian To Task Over Waste Pick Up

By Carol Arnett

Members of the Florissant City Council had some tough questions for a representative from Meridian Waste at the council meeting last week and are expecting some changes and improvements.

Derrick Standley came before the council to discuss Meridian’s change from single-stream recycling to dual-stream recycling. He said the change was due to contamination in the single-stream recycling.

Standley said that he knew about the service problems that the city was having.

“We love servicing your city and we want to keep your business,” Standley said. “We recently made some very significant changes in our management. We will improve service.”

However, council members still had several questions for Standley.

“You came before us a few meeting ago,” said Councilman Tim Jones. “We had questions and you said you’d be back to us the next day, and we’re still waiting.” Jones said that every week, he gets calls from residents saying that their trash was not picked up. He says that on every trash day he drives his ward to see what trash was missed.

“It’s pretty bad that on trash day I have to get up and make sure you’re doing your job,” Jones said. “Recycling has nothing to do with trash getting picked up. We pay you for it and have a contract,”

He said the city normally cites people for putting trash on the side of their house, but several people have said they haven’t had pickup in a while and that is why the trash is piling up. “If I had a vote today, I’d vote you down the road,” Jones said.

Councilman Joe Eagan said that he did not drive his ward, but he jogs every day and sees the trash that was not picked up. “I was going down a street in Mr. Jones’ ward and I saw a truck go down the street, get one house, pass two or three, then get another. I’m sick and tired of it.” He added that he also get calls from people who aren’t getting their trash picked up.

Council President Jeff Caputa said that he realized Meridian would not pick up trash from people who have not paid their bill. “You have to come and let us know that these people are not paying their bills. We don’t know because payment doesn’t come through us,” He added that not all the people who are missed have late payments. “We have things to do other than chasing trash trucks,” Caputa said.

Councilman Robert Parson also said he received calls every week. “They do resolve problems, but they need to pick up on time. I get people calling that they pay their bills and don’t get pick up for five weeks. Are you doing to credit residents who have paid and not gotten pickup?”

Standley said that he could not address crediting residents at this time.

Councilman Tommy Siam asked if Meridian had identified the root problem. “What are you going to do to address the problems?” he asked.

“The first hour of the day is everything,” Standley said. “We need to straighten out that first hour of the day.”

Councilman Gerard Henke echoed the request to see a list of people delinquent on their bills. “If someone hasn’t paid their bills in six months, we understand that,” he said.

Councilman Andrew Harris said that many of his residents are missed. “They will call Meridian and wait patiently,” he said. “Our pickup day is Friday, so a lot of times, they’re told it will get picked up, but it’s still there on Sunday.”

Harris asked if there are enough trucks and staff in Florissant to do the job.

“We have one or two new trucks that will go into service in the next few weeks,” Standley said.

After the meeting, Mayor Tom Schneider, in an e-mail, said that his “position is that Meridian has been notified repeatedly that they are in breach of the contract.” He added that Standley has been in charge for less than 60 days. “My Dad said that we should always ‘give a guy a fighting chance,’ but we need to observe some immediate and measurably positive results from Meridian in the next month if they intend to be our trash hauler for the remainder of the existing contract.”

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