Shenanigans on the Boulevard
A Tale of Two Tires

by Dennis Evanosky

Most of us look forward to Waste Management's annual "bulky waste pickup." This ritual allows us to clean house and rid ourselves of that stuff we just don't want any more. In a perfect world, we would put out the junk, they would pick it up, end of story. Oh, for a perfect world!

This year in my neighborhood, we found it necessary to photograph our junk before Waste Management arrived, then supervise the crew to be sure they picked it up. Paranoid, you say? Silly? Well, let me explain.

A week before our pickup, a neighbor approached me with a problem. Her 80-year-old mother had received a letter from Waste Management. The letter told her that her next bill would reflect a $50 charge for putting too much trash out for her bulky-waste pickup. Waste Management was shrewd enough to include a photo of the pile in front of her home. The photo, however, included trash that the mother had not put there.

"This happened to me," one of the neighbors said. "I was charged for things someone put in my green can that should not have been there. I didn't put it there."

We decided to monitor Waste Management's behavior on our street. Two retired neighbors followed the men picking up the piles of trash; one carried a camera. The difference between the supervised pickup on our street and the unsupervised pickup one street over amazed us all.

While this crew was being watched, they picked up every scrap of trash. On the next street where no one was watching, the results bordered on the disgusting. They left piles of scrap and trash at almost every home. Just around the corner, they left a pair of tires that someone had fastened together with boards and wire. Here begins the tale of two tires.

The pair had just celebrated an anniversary; they had been on our street exactly a year. During last year's bulky-waste pickup, someone left these tires in front of a vacant lot. Because they were not in front of a residence, Waste Management did not pick them up. Four weeks and three phone calls later, there sat the tires. By now, someone had moved them out of sight.

This year I put them out again in front of the residence where they were squirreled away. I was not surprised to see the tires when I arrived home that evening. I was surprised to see a little tag on the tires. "We do not do truck tires," the note said.

"For heaven's sake, a tire is a tire," one of my neighbors said. A City of Oakland employee later echoed this very sentiment. I then e-mailed Robert Bobb, Jean Quan, and Public Works.

I got an immediate response from Bobb's office. Wow! Did you ever get one of those immediate e-mails when you order something online? That's how Bobb's office responded. "We're looking into the matter," the e-mail said. One week went by, I heard nothing. "That's good," I thought. "Answer the e-mail, then do nothing." I decided to translate Bobb's response as, "Buzz off, pal."

I sent a second not-so-polite e-mail. This time I said I was writing up this incident for the Metro. I would like the appropriate parties to comment on the city's lack of response.

Bingo!

Arturo Sanchez from Jean Quan's office called the same day with an apology for not getting to me sooner. Jamil Blackwell from Public Works called about an hour later. Both assured me the tires would be picked up. I believed them. Silly me!

Another week went by. There sat the tires. I called Blackwell and Sanchez. "Those tires were picked up," Blackwell assured me.

This immediately brought to mind a conversation I once had with Bobb's former chief of staff Gilda Gonzales. "That TV was picked up," Gonzales assured me as I stood in front of the trashed TV with cell phone in hand.

What happened? In both instances, Public Works dispatched a crew to pick up the trash. In neither instance was the trash picked up, but management thought it was. In both these cases, the city had photographs of the offending items. How much clearer can you make it?

I arrived home that evening to find the tires gone. However, I found the boards and the wire that attached the tires still there. The boards lay in the street with the nails sticking up, and the wire on a nearby sidewalk.

I sent a second not-so-polite e-mail to Drew Winsor, who is responsible for picking up trash dumped illegally in our neighborhoods. He assured me that his office would respond within 72 hours to a complaint. I did not find this to be the case.

I wonder what would have happened had I not been privileged to write this column. How many readers get the "buzz off" response when they communicate with the city or with our elected representatives?

If you have issues with the way Waste Management or the City of Oakland handles your complaints, give me a call at 510-772-5209, or e-mail me at evanosky\@pacbell.net. Let's put the power of the Metro to work for us all.