City gives 45-day notice to Waste Pro: Company racked up 140 complaints since March 1

Published 11:02 pm Friday, May 19, 2017

The Brookhaven Board of Aldermen put Waste Pro on notice this week.

The company has 45 days to “cure the breach or default” on their contract with the city.

City attorney Joe Fernald sent a letter Tuesday to Doug Atkins, division manager of Waste Pro, explaining that the Brookhaven aldermen believe the excessive number of complaints received constitutes a breach of the terms of the contract between Brookhaven and Waste Pro.

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“There have been numerous problems with the pickup of solid waste,” Fernald wrote.

In March, the city forwarded 57 complaints to Stacy Jefferson, Waste Pro’s representative. In April, the city forwarded 53 complaints.

“In these cases, the response to the complaints has been unacceptable with residents waiting up to three weeks for a response to the problem,” he wrote.

Thirty complaints have been received since May 1, Fernald wrote, and attached copies of them to the letter he sent.

Mayor Joe Cox said he met with John Gibson, Waste Pro’s site manager for its Brookhaven division, Tuesday morning to voice the city’s complaints.

Cox said the majority of the public’s complaints are about vegetative debris, which includes limbs and leaves.

He said each ward has a certain day for pickup and residents complain that they get missed on their specific day.

Cox said Gibson said they’re running three debris trucks now.

“I think they were down to one at one time,” he said.

Waste Pro has also been running trucks on Saturdays.

“They just didn’t have enough manpower to get caught up,” Cox said.

Gibson assured the mayor that they’re going to do better.

The 45-day notice began May 1, Cox said, which gives Waste Pro until June 14 to greatly improve its performance and correct the breach in the contract.

Fernald said in the letter that Waste Pro representatives have recently met with the board on two occasions — at the request of the city — concerning the quality of the company’s services and their failure to satisfy the terms of the contract.