NORWALK, Conn. – With a stench “like a decomposed corpse” wafting through her Norwalk Hospital neighborhood Thursday, a political neophyte promised political activism – she’s going to campaign to keep Common Council members who voted to outsource Norwalk’s garbage pickup from being re-elected.
Zaida Brown, a 20-year resident of Woodbury Avenue, was not satisfied by the response from city officials to the complaints that flooded the City Hall customer service line in 90-degree heat Thursday about the garbage sitting out since Monday. That was due to a mix-up stemming from changed routes when City Carting took over the city’s garbage pickup.
“Everyone that is running, everyone that voted to outsource the garbage pick-ups, they’re going to be targeted come Election Day,” Brown said. She will do that with “flyers, the Internet, YouTube,” she said.
Brown said she was aware of the change to City Carting, which is why she put Monday’s garbage out Tuesday, the same as always. She wasn’t sure what would happen and wanted to make sure she didn’t miss the pickup.
Her neighbors put their’s out, too. But the pick-up was scheduled for Saturday.
“They’re changing our date,” she said. “The pickup date used to be the following day. Two weeks in the summer without trash collection. That is unacceptable in my book.”
Councilman David Watts (D-District A) said he was chagrined that this happened in his district, as he was against outsourcing, one of the reasons he ran in the first place, he said.
He was impressed by Brown.
“She was very vocal when I went to her house,” he said. “She had been Googling. She had a list of council members that voted for the garbage contract. She said, ‘I am going to get rid of them.’ … I will not forget the conversation that I had with this constituent.”
Councilman David McCarthy (R-District E), chairman of the Public Works Committee, said there was an obvious flaw in the communications from the city to the residents about when trash would be picked up.
“The issue is not who is picking up the trash, it was how it was communicated, so this has zero to do with outsourcing,” he said in an email. “If people didn’t get the message, that is our fault. Flyers were distributed to every house in the 4th Taxing District when the cut-over was done.”
The holiday trash pickup schedule was prominently displayed on the city’s website. The Hour newspaper reported it did not get an email announcing the trash schedule and thus did not publish it in the paper.
City workers could do two days of trash pickup in one day because of their “light work load,” McCarthy said. It’s not the first time this year that Monday trash pick-up has been delayed until Saturday due to a holiday but it is the first time the weather was hot, he said.
In retrospect, changing the pick-up from Monday to the following Saturday might not have been a good idea, he said.
“Part of me thinks (the Thursday outcry) is communication and part thinks it is too long of a time period,” he said in an email. “I think this one real issue got buried in all the rhetoric when we discussed it. I’m wondering if the Saturday before isn’t a better idea.”
Watts said about 100 people called City Hall. A dozen people called him. He happened to be in City Hall 0n Thursday afternoon, and said Mayor Richard Moccia got right on it when he heard of the problem. He was “pretty tough” in a phone call to Department of Public Works officials, Watts said.
“He was very firm,” he said. “I’m not going to repeat what he said but he was very firm on his expectations. … I’ve never seen him more upset than what happened today. I’ve seen him upset, but never that upset.”
McCarthy said it will be taken care of.
“The garbage will be collected tomorrow and we will work on the communications, which were definitely flawed,” he said in an email.
Watts said he spent “the better part of the day” on the phone with unhappy constituents who said no one had told them about the change in their garbage pickup.
“I took some angry calls today,” he said. “I’ve gotten some angry calls on stuff but today people were really really ticked off.”
He said outsourcing was a bad idea from the start.
“I had always believed that we have a great system and there was no reason to change it,” he said. “I believe that you get what you pay for. We’re not getting the same quality of service that we’re accustomed to.”
That goes beyond the mix-up in the Norwalk Hospital area. Trash that falls out of the can in front of his house gets left there, he said.
“The guys in (Local) 2405 used to make sure everything got picked up,” he said. “I’m hearing from all over the city that it’s not the same.”
Brown called every council person, she said. “The only one didn’t call back was Fred Bondi,” she said.
She had two complaints. Getting a phone number for Michelle Maggio (R-District C) was difficult, but the conversation was good, she said.
McCarthy went to Woodbury Avenue to talk to her.
“I found Mr. McCarthy to be a little condescending,” she said. “It’s not not true, there were no fliers. Why didn’t they own up to it and say they screwed up? I was a little upset. He tried to blame the residents.”
McCarthy said he could live with that.
“Ms. Brown … is more intent on waging a campaign against outsourcing than having the issue addressed, which makes me think it is not about the garbage, nor a solution, it is about making someone else’s political point,” he said in an email. “If she felt me stopping her from saying Norwalk was like a Third World Nation was condescending, I think I am OK with that. In any circumstance, having your trash at the curb for three days does not in any way equate to the suffering of people in the Third World.”
Watts said the smell in the neighborhood was horrendous.
“I’m hoping this is a ‘come to Jesus’ moment,” he said, regarding outsourcing. “… There were flies. The smell was almost unbearable with all the trash.”
Brown said she can’t walk to work at Norwalk Hospital with all the trash on the sidewalk. Racoons and rats were likely to get into the rotting garbage and strew it all over the street, she said.
“My windows are closed,” she said. “I don’t dare turn the air conditioner on. It’s like a decomposed corpse out there. It’s ridiculous.”
Correction made, July 1
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