'Simply Dependable'

Simpsonville Public Works resumes trash pickup in fall

Simpsonville, S.C. — In response to calls from residents for a higher quality of customer service, Simpsonville City Council accepted a proposal on Tuesday to again entrust the Simpsonville Public Works Department with garbage collection in the fall.

City Council voted 7-0 to accept the proposal following a signal of support for in-house sanitation when it voted unanimously at the March Committee of the Whole meeting to place the proposal on Tuesday night's agenda.

Public Works Director Andy West submitted the proposal to  Council for his department to resume sanitation services starting in September when the current contract with ACE Environmental ends. City Administrator Dianna Gracely, who presented the proposal to Council, said at the business meeting Tuesday night that Council members communicated to staff about two years ago that they were interested in giving sanitation back to Public Works.

"We do have capital available now to purchase new equipment in order to take (sanitation) back in-house, and that is critical," Gracely said, referring to the City's sanitation enterprise fund made possible by the Public Works fee. "Obviously we would not want to start sanitation services in-house again with incurring debt in order to do it."

Council voted in 2018 to raise the Public Works fee from $34 to $167 to raise capital for new sanitation equipment and personnel and resurfacing of roads.

Since a previous Council awarded in 2016 a five-year contract for ACE Environmental (which Meridian Waste recently acquired) to provide sanitation services for the City, subsequent City councils, including the current one, have received regular complaints about missed pickups, fallen cans and strewn trash in streets.

Councilmember Jenn Hulehan of Ward 3 said on Tuesday the state of the Public Works Department in 2016 was a "shock" to her and that resources had been "so completely mismanaged for so long" that Council had to make at the time a "really tough, very unpopular but completely necessary choice" to contract out sanitation services.

"Sometimes you got to go through a short-term period of pain and discomfort in order to get to where you want to be long-term, and while I appreciate that Ace got us through that short-term pain and discomfort that I know we all heard about and we all felt, we have worked really hard since 2016," said Hulehan, who motioned to accept the in-house sanitation proposal. "This is not a decision where we just decided last year let's go back to doing trash ourselves. We've been working hard since 2016 to come up with fiscally responsible long-term plans for sustainable quality services, especially sanitation services for the City of Simpsonville."

City staff also provided Council with proposals from Meridian Waste and Greater Greenville Sanitation. Mayor Paul Shewmaker permitted Meridian Waste representative and former ACE owner Steve Serafino to speak to Council at the meeting.

Serafino said the "flaws" in the City's in-house sanitation proposal are the alleged difficulty hiring CDL drivers and skilled truck operators, alleged inefficiency of side-loader trucks and discontinuation of the curbside recycling service.

"I hope your plan is a little better than that," Serafino said. "We'd love the opportunity to sit down and talk to you and maintain the work."

Several Council members responded to Serafino's presentation by acknowledging the need to contract out sanitation services in 2016 before stressing incessant reports of poor customer service, signaling support and confidence in the Public Works Department and emphatically previewing their "aye" votes once discussion ended.

Councilwoman Sherry Roche of Ward 4, who lamented her own subpar experience with the third-party vendor, said the company has not taken responsibility for its mistakes.

"When a can is missed or something broken or something happens or there's trash everywhere, nobody at ACE would own it, so we quit coming to you," Roche said. "We came to the city administrator who knows how to get things done, and we would send our own staff out there to clean up the mess after ACE left."

Roche added that she has had "zero complimentary calls" about ACE in the last three years.

Simpsonville Community Relations Specialist Justin Campbell said the transition from a third-party vendor to in-house sanitation by Public Works will ensure dependability and accountability in trash pickup.

"Whereas a private company's employees are accountable to their employer first, Public Works employees are directly accountable to the City," Campbell said. "The goal of the Public Works Department is not to make money but to provide the best customer service possible because Public Works crews see residents as more than customers. While contracting with a third-party vendor may have been the right decision for the City in 2016, Council believes now is the time to move forward with a dependable, accountable and excellent Public Works Department, and that's exactly what we're going to do."