I see Gary is still here carrying the same market fundamentalism. Or rather -
Right, really, no wait, not at all.
The push to organize trash collection came from folks across the state when the
State Legislature made it possible to organize trash. Trash, like water and a
ton of other things, was under the big "privatize deregulate corporate" push in
the late Reagan years (that certainly continued through Clinton 1.)
The state legislation made it easier to do organized trash in two main ways -
municipal provision (the City does it) or the (ugh) public-private cabal of
haulers get together and make a bid. They did it the right way in Maplewood,
where the city is now providing the service and EVERYONE got a big cut in their
bill. They also have less strain on the infrastructure, fewer emissions, and
all the efficiencies that one truck picking up a whole neighborhood gets you.
BUT THEN BIG BUSINESS - the big haulers, freaking out that they could lose this
once-public, now-private service back to the cities, dumped tens of thousands
of dollars on glossy political hit flyers to target the main dude in the
Maplewood City Council that made it happen. You'd be surprised what fifty grand
in corporate money can get you in a municipal election.
AND HERE big business started flacking hard, even as they negotiated with the
city, to not have the rates we needed. And they say it's to keep the small
haulers in the business, because the big corporate firms could put up with the
lesser profit better. So we get a crappy deal in St. Paul, but the
neighborhoods are better served with one truck a week, etc. But here's my point
- if the bigger haulers can do it for cheaper, why not have the city do it and
pay better wages and take less profit (like no profit) because then they'd be a
big hauler!
Of course, market fundamentalists will go BUT THE JAAAAHBS (although a city
union hauler could do it with higher quality jobs) and then they'll go BUT THE
PRIVATE MAAAAARKET and I'll shrug because I got no problem with high quality
public service. I want a nonprofit city run fire department, I want the city
water utility (better than bottled water) and I sure don't want anyone making
profit deciding if my east side roads get paved or not.
And if this mayor is a little less likely to jump how high when big business in
town moans, I'm fine with that. That's the real history of this town - small
inner cabal of big buck folks call the shots and the rest of us go waiting.
It's been that way in this town since my great grandpappy's day, and if it's
changing, I'm glad. Not changing fast enough.