Most of us pay for city services that we rarely use. Some people can go for years without ever calling the police or the fire department. Many will go their whole life without ever applying for a building permit. It is possible to be born and raised on Oahu and never ride TheBus. It’s important that those services are there, but they’re not for everyone all the time.
Then there’s trash pickup, which everyone expects on a regular basis. We’ll pay for all the other things that we might never use, but by God, the trash needs to get picked up.
For more than a week, trash pickup on parts of Oahu just didn’t happen.
From Aliamanu to Hawaii Kai, regular trash pickup was off, starting Oct. 31. Officials from the city Environmental Services Department said they expected regular pickups to return to normal Saturday.
But on Sunday, fully loaded trash bins were still sitting on the curb in East Honolulu neighborhoods and all along Kalanianaole Highway.
Last week, Gordon Pang reported that delays in pickup were caused by a shortage of trash truck drivers. Apparently, there have been promotions, retirements and people just quitting, and instead of the 35 operators needed to service all the routes, the crew is down to 25, which is odd since the base pay is $50,000 a year, higher than the starting pay for teachers.
So that’s the first part of the problem. The second part of the problem is that the city seems to have no way of tracking how many households were affected all those days that the trucks didn’t show up.
As Pang reported:
“Environmental Services Director Lori Kahikina said the city keeps count of the number of bins collected, but that number is skewed because some customers have multiple bins while other customers may not be putting out their bins on certain days if they are not filled.”
As the saying goes, “If you can’t measure, you can’t manage.” The library can tell if you borrowed a racy book six years ago, but the city doesn’t know if they picked up your trash last week. Isn’t there an app for that?
And who gets the most bothered when the heavy bins get forgotten at the curb? Grandma Mildred who had to go outside in her housedress and drag that heavy thing down the driveway. Grampa George who carefully put his fish guts in the bin the night before trash day so they wouldn’t stink in the hot sun. The retirees who love routine and an orderly universe and who keep track of broken promises.
The people who care most about garbage day are also the people who most reliably vote.
On Monday the bins that had been left behind on Saturday were finally picked up. Better late than never, but better not late at all.
When the trash doesn’t get picked up, that’s when people stop getting elected. Next time, Kirk had better bust out his hard hat and safety vest.
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Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com
