Trash talk continues in committee

Three weeks ago juror A.J. “Jay” Credeur told a special meeting of the Acadia Parish Police Jury that he could negotiate an end to the apparent collection problems the parish is having with Progressive Waste Solutions.

By the slimmest of margins — a 3-2 vote with two jurors absent — Credeur was given the authority to “negotiate” with Progressive Waste Solutions to ensure that all aspects of the parish contract are adhered to.

During Tuesday night’s committee meetings, Credeur, a member of the Solid Waste Committee, said he had ironed out the problems with Dave Clabo, area marketing manager for Progressive.

A.J. “Fatty” Broussard, committee chairman, had a different opinion.

Broussard, armed with two stacks of complaints, said the company continues to miss pickups, sometimes including entire neighborhoods or communities.

“These,” Broussard said, holding up a stack of papers about an inch and a half thick, “are complaints from July 17 (the day after the special meeting) until the end of the month.

“And these are the 55 complaints we’ve received since August 1, five days ago,” he added, pulling another stack of forms from another folder.

Credeur was joined by juror Dale Trahan in defending the parish contractor, each claiming that, while some customers may have been missed, Progressive has made every effort to go back and pick up the garbage as soon as they were notified.

“I got a lot of calls, too, but I took care of them myself. I called Progressive and told them and they went and picked it up,” Trahan said.

“So what you’re saying is that there were actually more than the 55 complaints that Mr. Broussard has,” countered David Savoy, jury president and ex officio member of the Solid Waste Committee. “If you’ve also received ‘a lot of calls,’ then there were ‘a lot’ more missed customers than we know about.”

Credeur alluded to possible errors on the part of residents that could lead to missed pickups.

“Some people are used to their garbage being picked up at, say, 10 o’clock, so they put it out at 8 in the morning,” Credeur explained. “Well, if there was a change in routes or a new driver, the truck may have passed at 6 o’clock.

“The contract says that the cans are to be put to the road the night before.”

Credeur added that Clabo is currently negotiating with Progressive “headquarters” to have cameras placed in the collection trucks.

“That way, if we get a complaint, they can go back through the tapes and see if that can was there when the truck passed,” the juror said.

“So they’ll be policing themselves?” asked Trisha Pastor, office manager at the Acadia Parish Sanitary Landfill and the person now responsible for answering complaints and forwarding those complaints to Progressive.

“They’ll have to police themselves. We can’t police them,” Credeur answered.

Credeur attempted to assure committee members that steps are being taken by Progressive to reduce the number of missed pickup.

“Drivers have been moved around and some that had been in the parish before — that know the parish — are being brought back in,” Credeur said. “Clabo said he will be in the parish starting (Monday) for at least a week and a half to straighten things out.”

No action was taken by the Solid Waste Committee.

(Ed. Note: The committee also discussed fines that can be contractually levied against Progressive for missed collections. A report on that discussion will be included in another story.)