letter to the mayor

unanswered questions

more than a week has passed since I posted these questions on the town's FB page:

"our first (trash) pickup is supposed to be on friday, 7/3. will this happen given the 7/4 holiday (the federal holiday is friday, 7/3)? I signed on to wm's website and received the following message: "Your email is verified, but we did not find any matching accounts to your email. It takes 48 to 72 hours to set up your WM account and display it online." so, my questions are: (1) will wm pick up our trash on friday 7/3? (2) under the town's contract with wm, will the town furnish to wm the information necessary (customer ID and postal code) so that we can access for ourselves wm's pickup schedule?"

here's the town's response:

"Waste Management (WM) will be picking up on July 3rd. We are working with WM to see what will work best for customer notifications moving forward, and will communicate that to all our residents as soon as possible."

I got an answer to my first question, but not my second question. a couple of things are clear:

1. there have been several times over the past 3 years that residents were unaware that the trash company wasn't picking up on a scheduled day. residents hauled their trash out to the curb only to haul it back again. sometimes the town posted on its FB page that the trash wasn't going to be picked up--sometimes only minutes before the deadline for residents to put their trash at the curb. Further, the town has failed to recognize that residents don't check the town's pathetic FB page hourly.
2. the town's non-answer to my second question clearly shows that even though the town has known for months that a new trash collector was required in 2020, they failed to address the notification problem during contract negotiations with the new vendor.

on july 4 the town posted on their FB page a diagram that shows the following steps: (1) customer placing their trash at the curb, (2) trash collected by vendor, (3) vendor taking trash "to plant" and (4) plant processing waste to energy (fuel, gas, electricity). The town's post included the following statement: "Your waste becomes energy that you use! We’re here to help you navigate as we begin our new partnership with WM."

I posted the following:

"nice diagram. how does this diagram relate to us--citizens of the town of strasburg, shenandoah county, commonwealth of virginia? is OUR waste converted to energy? where is the plant? how does our recycling fit into this diagram?"

the truth is that waste from the town goes to shenandoah county's landfill--NOT a waste-to-energy plant. there were only 68 waste-to-energy plants in the entire US in 2018. Waste-to-energy (MSW) - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

why doesn't the town answer my questions? 

Abraham Lincoln is credited with the following quote:

“You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

 the town of strasburg thinks that they can fool all of the people all of the time. 

BTW, this is the same town that continually pats itself on the back about what a great job that they're doing. that also posted "you spoke, and we listened". if that's the case, town of strasburg, then why don't you answer my questions?