Gordonsville is in need of a new trash collection service after Updike Industries announced it would terminate its contract with the town six months before it was to expire.
The news comes only two years after Gordonsville contracted with the Culpeper-based, family-run business, after its predecessor, Vaughan, Canada-based Green for Life, said it would not renew its contract with the town “due to increasing operational expenses that are no longer supported by the current contract disposal rate.”
Updike’s contract with the town of Gordonsville will be terminated this coming January. It was originally meant to run through the end of June.
The company has accused the town of not honoring the current contract. Updike says its drivers regularly arrive at residences where piles of garbage are stacked 3 feet high, far exceeding the limit detailed in the contract: 64 gallons per week per household.
Updike has been collecting three times that amount every week, the company said, and filling an extra truck to accommodate the volume.
“We were showing up at houses and there were multiple full trash cans and piles of trash we’re expected to pick up,” Updike operations manager Karl Thornhill told The Daily Progress. “It was more than 64 gallons at multiple houses and was becoming unsafe for our drivers who must get out and collect the trash instead of using the automated arm to lift the cans.”
As a result, Updike has had to leave some trash behind. The company said it has reached out to town officials 12 times over the past two years to rectify the matter without luck.
Updike office manager Audrey Updike told The Daily Progress that it is clear the town has not conveyed to residents there is a limit to the amount of trash they can dispose each week.
“The town never communicated about a 64-gallon limit, creating confusion for residents,” she said.
Town Manager Debbie Kendall did not respond to a Daily Progress request for comment.
Gordonsville Mayor Bobby Coiner lays the blame entirely on Updike.
After residents began to complain their trash wasn’t being collected, Coiner took to Facebook. The mayor said Updike had operated outside the limits of its contract for some time, only protesting after receiving complaints from drivers.
“Updike was never picky about enforcing that [the 64-gallon limit] before, so it wasn’t a problem. After complaints they started going by the letter of the contract and holding households to the contract amount,” he wrote. “If Updike will do their very simple job of picking up the trash, there will be no problems going forward.”
Coiner did not respond to a Daily Progress request for comment.
Updike has responded that its drivers are not missing stops, they are simply not able to remove as much waste as the town produces.
“What they’re counting as missed stops aren’t missed at all,” Audrey Updike said. “They count not taking the excess as missed.”
“We have a one-half-of-1% margin of error in the town of Gordonsville,” said Thornhill, who added that he had received two emails from the town about missed stops just during his interview with The Daily Progress.
Only they weren’t missed stops, he said. “The driver had already taken that stop’s 64 gallons of trash and was sticking to the contracted amount.”
Earlier this year, Updike attempted to remedy the problem on its own.
The company offered any resident whose personal trash can could not be lifted by its trucks’ arms a larger 95-gallon can. Updike offered the cans at no additional cost.
“Switching to the 95-gallon cans allowed our truck’s automated arms to safely grab the cans and load into the trucks,” Audrey Updike said. “We tried to solve the problem when the town would not communicate with us or residents about what we’re contracted to pick up. We went above and beyond and paid for cans out of pocket at no charge to the town or residents.”
But the newer, larger cans did not fix the problem; Updike was still overwhelmed with the amount of trash produced in Gordonsville, the company said.
So, Updike began removing the new cans last month.
Chaos ensued. Some residents revolted, camouflaging the trash cans or removing the Updike logo to prevent the company from taking them away. Other residents went online and accused Updike of stealing their personal trash cans.
Updike has reminded residents they do not own the 95-gallon trash cans and that if they do believe their personal cans were removed or damaged, they can always contact the company at (540) 825-1950.
Coiner said the confusion was, once again, Updike’s fault.
“Updike did this on their own and created a mess,” he posted on Facebook.
Amid the chaos and confusion, Coiner warned residents that they should not trust anyone on the matter other than town officials.
“The only source of truth is from the town,” he wrote. “In the future anyone who comes on here saying they heard so and so, thus spreading a rumor, rather than calling town hall to check, will have their post deleted and if they continue to do that on this site, they’ll be suspended.”
The problem is residents say they can’t trust the town if the town does not communicate with them.
“The most frustrating part is the lack of communication on the part of the town,” lifelong Gordonsville resident Michelle Johnson told The Daily Progress.
Updike employees said they hold no ill will for the people of Gordonsville and are disappointed that the town has been more willing to blame the company than work with the company.
“We try to go above and beyond for our customers,” said Audrey Updike. “Updike purchased and delivered the bigger cans last year, and it just wasn’t enough. We continued to service everyone when the amounts of trash continued to increase, even though it was more than our contracted amount, and that wasn’t enough either. We want to provide great customer service, but the town has just not worked with us.”
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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