CARMEL, Ind. (WISH) — A disagreement over road conditions in Carmel during this week’s winter storm is causing the city to seek $20,000 in damages from Republic Services for each day it fails to pick up trash from residents who were scheduled to have it picked up on Thursday.
“On Wednesday, we agreed that Thursday was not a good day to pick up trash and decided to move it back to (Thursday) night, we sent out a press release to inform the public if you were supposed to have your trash picked up on Thursday, you’ll get it on Friday,” Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard said in an interview with News 8.
On Saturday, Brainard was told the trash wouldn’t be picked up until Monday.
“The informed us that they had changed their mind, weren’t keeping their word, and weren’t going to do it. They said the streets are too bad,” Brainard said.
In a statement emailed to News 8, Republic said:
“The Republic Services team cares about the communities we serve, and the safety of employees and residents is our top priority. Due to the severe winter storm that has been affecting many areas across the country, we made an initial decision to suspend service on Thursday. We continued to monitor conditions and the forecast and determined that it would not be safe to operate on Friday. We are proud to serve the Carmel community and look forward to resuming service as soon as it is safe to do so.”
But, the Republican mayor said the city streets were clear of snow by Friday morning, and there was no reason why Republic couldn’t do its job.
“I pointed out to them that we had 92 snow removal vehicles in the city of Carmel. They had worked all night. All 500 miles of our streets were down to the pavement,” Brainard said.
The mayor said he offered to drive Republic workers into Carmel and even lend them city vehicles to pick up the trash, but the company declined.
“Quite honestly, Republic is an $8 billion company that works all over the country. What happens in the winter in Minnesota and Northern Michigan, Northern Wisconsin? They get their trash picked up. This wasn’t that big of snow” compared to those northern U.S. states.
Republic also said it did not have enough staff Friday to cover the trash pickup routes.
