City and Taylor Waste Services working out kinks in new arrangement

Cairo city officials are working through some kinks after having privatized the city’s solid waste collection service last month. The transition came just as Tropical Storm Irma blew into town.
On Monday night, Cairo City Councilman Lannis Thornton complained that there were streets in his district where storm debris had never been picked up.
“There is trash on both sides of the road,” Thornton complained.
Mayor Pro Tem Ernest Cloud also raised concerns that residents were being told that the city’s contractor, Taylor Waste Services, would not pick up trash and debris that is placed under a power line.
“Have they changed the rules about where you can put trash? When the city picked it up that was not a rule,” Cloud said.
Mayor Bobby Burns predicted that if that is the new rule there were going to be some upset city residents.
“I haven’t heard that and no one has told me that is what is being required. I will say it is probably not a good idea to be operating a boom truck under a power line, but I’ll get clarification on that,” City Manager Chris Addleton said.
The city manager said that Taylor Waste was returning to its regular trash collection after having picked up all of the storm debris. Addleton questioned that there would be areas where no trash had been picked up and Councilman Jerry Cox admitted that Taylor’s crews had been in his northwest neighborhood twice last week.
“If there is a place they have missed we will be sure to let them know,” Addleton said.
Councilman Bobby Gwaltney also encouraged the city manager to speak with Chris Taylor, owner of Taylor Waste, to ask his men to make sure they pick up any limbs or debris that may fall from the truck into the street. Gwaltney said he observed a limb in the street just after the crew had gone through his neighborhood. “You might just remind them about it,” the city councilman said.
Councilman Cox also asked about the inventorying of the holes along city streets dug out by the knuckle boom truck. Addleton said that was going to be a long process of filling in all of those holes, but he said that Community Service Director Pat Mitchell and his crew were out working on them diligently.
“There are some serious holes out there,” Cox added.