More on trash and holidays

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

To recap:
* Yesterday was a municipal holiday in Somerville which supposedly means that trash pickup is delayed by one day for the entire week.
* However, some people reported that their trash was picked up yesterday, per the usual (non-holiday) schedule.
* Yesterday afternoon I posted in this community saying that I had received email from the city confirming that yesterday's trash pickup was in error and that pickups would indeed be delayed this week.
* But this morning orbitalmechanic posted in a comment on the aforementioned post, saying that her trash was picked up today, on the usual (non-holiday) schedule.

I've just had another email exchange with Sean Murphy, Director of "Constituent Services" for the city. He now tells me that the trash vendor does go around the regular-day streets, after picking up on the holiday schedule, and collects any trash that was erroneously put out by people who didn't know/remember about the holiday. They do this to reduce clutter and so forth. So, in other words, on a Tuesday of a holiday week, they would collect the Monday streets first (per holiday schedule) and then drive around the Tuesday streets just to get whatever is out; and then they would do the Tuesday streets again on Wednesday, per holiday schedule. Clear as mud?

In any case, Mr. Murphy asked me my opinion of this, whether I think it makes sense to do it this way. So I put it to you as well. What do you think?

Personally I can see both sides. The city is in a bit of a bind here: if they delay the pickups, there will always be at least a few people who forget or don't realize it's a holiday, so we wind up with trash sitting out for a whole extra day. But if they pick up on a Tuesday street on Tuesday, all the residents who thought they were supposed to put trash out on Wednesday get confused (and potentially angry). Then those people are likely to not put their trash out at all, and be angry all over again when the truck comes again on Wednesday!

Thoughts?

BTW, you can email Sean Murphy yourself if you like: smurphy@ci.somerville.ma.us

Sorry to take up so much of your friends-list with trash talk ;)

Comments

[tt02144.livejournal.com]

Bunker Hill Day is a REAL holiday, always celebrated locally, unfortunately, all holidays are receiving less and less notice, and fewer people receive them as days off (mostly municipal and state employees.) This does not mean that it's not a day worth noting, along with Patriots Day, Evacuation Day, VJ Day, Veteran's Day, Columbus Day, etc. These are important historical holidays, particularly for people living in this area, and I find it sad that people (especially in the school system and in the media), take so little note of them. Check the Globe every year for their coverage of the Boston Maration, and their coverage of historical Patriots' Day re-enactments, which happen on the same day!
That being said, I think that the deal with the trash pick-up is that if they finish their route and have time, they will pick up trash inadvertently left out on the wrong day. It's relatively random, so you can't really count on it happening each time.
I think if the city posted this information and mailed it to households, and also did the 'robo-call' thing, they've done enough. How many times can you expect to be reminded about trash pickup?
My guess is that the Russell Disposal guys work on the city schedule, so they probably had the Monday holiday also. They would probably make up the extra day (saturday) by being paid time and a half, or by getting a 'comp' day to use when they please. This is typical in municipalities to cover such circumstances.