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Many KCMO residents and City Councilmembers are upset about the city’s bulky trash pickup program. Due to city budget cuts the program was switched from a regular monthly schedule to and appointment only system. Apparently many people are having trouble making the switch, and perhaps the city cut back too much – because some residents are reporting waiting times as long as three months. City Manager Wayne Cauthen acknowledges the problem and says that ideally people would have to wait ten days for an appointment.
However, we need to have a little bit of perspective here. Despite the problems transitioning to a new system, KCMO still has a much better system than most of our neighboring suburbs. People in those places have to wait much longer. For example, Leawood only allows one item per month. Overland Park and Prairie Village only pick up bulky items once a year!
Despite a difficult transition, city residents still have it much better and suburbanites.
This is a basic city service and the city manager in which is protected by the city council can’t get the job done. Wayne Cauthen’s only interest is downtown. That is not where the focus needs to be. The Mayor was right Wayne Cauthen should have been fired and should be. The City Council needs to be held accountable for the poor city services.
In part of the Northland – Parkville & Riverside – we have twice yearly “clean-up” weekends where we’re invited to drag just about anything short of hazardous waste to the depot between Riverside & Parkville gratis. During these weekends, the hazardous waste facility off Chouteau usually participates (I believe that the fees still apply, but I’m not certain).
Also of note – we have independently contracted residential waste disposal services vice municipal or “sole source” contractors. The service we chose is family-owned & operated. They will handle large items with at least a day’s notice before pickup. Again, if it’s sufficiently large or your use is frequent, charges apply.
Here is the problem with the new Bulky Pickup: It is not regular & predictable, so it is MORE expensive, and each item must be listed, so it is less functional. You have to have a specific appointment, with each item listed.
I am sure that seemed like a good idea to anyone who had never used the service. Like the City Management Staff.
Under the old system — where each area had a specific week — scavengers & recyclers would roam the designated area, beginning on Sunday night. Anything reusable was gone well before the City trucks came by, so there was usually less than 1/4th as much to actually pick up.
The new system is unpredictable for the enterprising scavengers & recyclers, so it ends up requiring the City to take everything set out and landfill it. Since the “appointment” cannot be anticipated on a published schedule — and now seems to have gotten way out of hand — more private dumping occures, both illegal and legal (but expensive to the homeowners).
This change got done while the attention of the Council was being misdirected to the Silly Spouse War. I suspect that an actual audit would show minimum paper savings (especially when including additional landfill & illegal dumping pickup) and no actual savings (when including citizen costs & frustrations).
For example, of those items pictured in your photo, chances are neither the sofa nor the washer would have been there for the City to pick up and dump in a landfill.
How much did it “save” the City on that one alone?
But that is only something that an administrator would have understood if he actually understood how the old system worked & why it did so.