Feb 3, 2024 By Paul Paterra 3 min read

The vice president of the new trash hauling company servicing the city of Washington came to Thursday’s council meeting to address various concerns.

Ben Woods told council that Big’s Sanitation just completed its fifth week as Washington’s trash hauler.

“The first week went really well,” he said. “The second week, we ran into weather and some other issues and it got a little rocky. We have continued communication with the officials of the city. We have crews in here on a daily basis. We try to resolve all issues within 24 hours.”

Woods said Thursday there were three “misses” that day, two of which were resolved the same day and the other was expected to be resolved Friday.

“We continue to learn the different areas of the city, different alleys and different backups, what to pick up with small trucks, what to pick up with large trucks,” Woods said. “I think every week it’s improved, other than the bad weather week. We continue to have a presence here. We continue to learn the city and continue to improve. We’ve had a little over 20,000 collections. We have had issues, but we’re resolving them. We’re open to communication.”

City Administrator Donn Henderson said a number of complaints were received in the first weeks of the transition, but they have decreased.

“We had less complaints this week,” he said. “I think we all knew a transition like this was going to be difficult. There’s more than 5,000 pickups. You don’t expect guys to come in and figure that out in a week. We’re trying to work through it. We had a few glitches early on. They’ve been really responsive and I think it’s getting better. We’re hopeful that it will continue to improve.”

Council approved a five-year contract with Big’s Sanitation in October, effective Jan. 1.The new deal came with a rate hike from $243 a year to $300 in the first year, with 2 or 3% increases in subsequent years.

Henderson said if another option would have been chosen, those increases would have been higher. The next closest bid would have cost $500,000 more over the five-year period and the next one would have been $1 million more.

“That would have cost a significant amount of money and we didn’t want the taxpayers to have to bear that burden,” Henderson said.

Mayor JoJo Burgess said a concern he heard from residents was the reception they received when they call to voice complaints.

“The people answering the calls they felt were not very happy with them,” Burgess said. “When they were looking for answers they were really pushed away. The next call was either to my office or Donn’s office to say we called them and this is how they treated us. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, but I would just hope that it will be addressed when they talk to people when they call.”

Woods said he has brought those concerns to those working in the office and feels it has improved.

Also Thursday, council approved the promotion of police Sgt. Willis McConnell to the rank of lieutenant and OK’d the contract of Joe Thomas as parking director.