Jun 25, 2008 3 min read

Contrary to the advice from the Herald-Standard editorial board and friends and family, I voted for Ed Fike for mayor of Uniontown. For the past six months he has been on a mission to replace the city workers who haul our garbage and yard waste with a private contractor. City Council voted to hired Veolia Environmental Services Inc. to replace them, effective July 1, without much input from the citizenry. The scenario is rife with problems. Garbage and yard waste is piling up and is being picked up on an intermittent basis. The mayor blames the city employees for missing work and reporting off due to illnesses. Like the kids say, “Duh?” When you make war on your employees and take away their jobs, would one expect exuberance and enthusiasm?

Further, the sanitation workers are represented by the AFSCME union and hold a current and ongoing contract with the city of Uniontown. Apparently this decision was made without notification and/or bargaining with the union. Having been involved with unions, grievance handling, arbitrations, public law boards, etc., for many years, I do know that this unilateral move could lead to long and expensive litigation, reversal and be construed as an unfair labor practice.

The contract was given to Veolia (a huge multi-national company based in France) instead of Fayette Waste, even though Fayette Waste was the low bidder for “unlimited” hauling, due to a technicality in the bonding requirements.

Goodwill Industries, a charitable organization, has had the recycling contract taken away and it’s being given to Veolia at the charge of 75 cents per month. Veolia will not haul grass clipping and yard waste, something the city always handled. Now the residents will have to bag and haul their waste to the compost pile at the sewer plant or hire someone to do it for them. This seems to me to be a tremendous waste of time and expensive gasoline and will be onerous and burdensome for most residents. It’ll cost us more to get less in services.

I advised Mayor Fike, whom I don’t know personally, of what I consider to be problems with this proposal. He was courteous and attentive. Apparently, Mayor Fike and Councilmen Blair Jones and Marlin Sprouts (why is he still there?) voted in favor of the new contractor; Councilman Gary Crozier voted to “table” it, as he was aware that problems existed with abrogating the union contract; and the one shining light of reason was Councilman Francis “Joby” Palumbo, who voted against it. Thank you, Joby.

Will Veolia continue to pick up garbage from those who don’t pay or will it be left to attract flies and rodents on the streets? I believe the city would be better served to concentrate on enforcement and increased collection of past due bills and not let contracts with diminished services to the residents of Uniontown.

I certainly hope that the council doesn’t change the burning ordinances to allow the burning of yard waste. We don’t need burning barrels and smoldering fires in our back yards and alleys. The movement in the country is toward “clean and green.”

I promised myself there would be “no more letter-writing campaigns” or “tilting at windmills” in my retirement years, but something stinks here and it’s more than the garbage. Council should rescind and reconsider their actions.

G. “Phil” Bokoch

Uniontown