All That Doesn’t Glitter In Saint Paul
By Mitch Berg
Saint Paul’s “Tony Soprano”-style trash collection system – which has morphed over the past decade from individually-contracted vendors to a dozen or so vendors allocated across the city by a city plan that drove most of them out of Saint Paul, to now one single contracted vendor that sucked up to the city properly, is facing a shutdown before it really starts:
After years of bitter debates that came be called “the trash wars,” the start of the new garbage hauler’s contract on April 1 is supposed to mark a turning point in the city’s bid to take a more central role in managing the service.
t. Paul City Council members voted 5-0 on Wednesday to block the new hauler, FCC Environmental, from placing its truck yard on a lot the company purchased last summer off West Seventh Street, just blocks from the Schmidt Artist Lofts.
The vote stems from a January appeal filed by a neighborhood group, which has argued the trash facility would undermine long-term plans for residential, mixed-use, transit-oriented development in the area.
Lesson #1 – the most powerful people in Saint Paul are white upper middle class “artists” living off government “humanities” grants in lofts. They may be even more powerful than white progressive 60-something livelong DFL women from Mac Groveland.
Hard as that may be to believe.
Lesson #2 – White Saint Paul progressives apprently think that trash goes to the same place food comes from; some magical building.
March 21st, 2025 at 10:31 am
“They may be even more powerful than white progressive 60-something livelong DFL women from Mac Groveland.”
Ohhh, I know several. Used to live in Highland Park, grew up there and Mac Groveland. Most naive people I know including my ex when it comes to politics. Did you know Trump is a Nazi? Oh yeah, they all do in that holier-than-thou ‘hood.
March 21st, 2025 at 10:46 am
I’ve used the examples provided by St. Paul, Robbinsdale, and Bloomington several times whenever some do-gooder (who thinks it’s horrible that many loud, ugly, stinky garbage trucks roam the streets one morning per week) tries to start a municipal movement in Crystal (my suburb) of going to one contracted hauler. Robbinsdale, summer 2021: Lockdowns decimated labor availability, and most of the suburb didn’t have trash hauled for 5 weeks in the hottest part of the summer. However, Crystal never had any issues. No one reported that they didn’t get their trash picked up. SItD readers can easily identify the reason for that discrepancy. I’ve opened a few people’s eyes with that little tidbit.
March 21st, 2025 at 1:47 pm
I grew up in Saint Paul and ran for the House in 64B in 2010. I’ve since skedaddled out of the City proper despite remaining in RamCo.
64B was predominantly Highland Park and a 70/30 DFL area, but there used to be logical thinkers there. Now it’s devolved into a TDS hotbed.
I tried convincing my family that still lives in St. Paul to vote against Mayor Carter’s Garbage Takeover when it was on the ballot several years ago. I warned them it was doomed to failure. They couldn’t be bothered to even think about the issue for the time it took to talk to them.
I’m sorry for people like Mitch that live there and valiantly fight that good fight. But I’m a half German @$$hole. I’ll look at the rest of the folks and the issues they voted for with schadenfreude glee in my black heart and sip a bitter beer to the memory of H.L. Mencken.
March 21st, 2025 at 2:13 pm
^ I’ve never lived in a big city, so I don’t know. What is it about living in a big city that makes one “lean left”? I mean, it’s not just here, it’s everywhere.
March 21st, 2025 at 4:01 pm
They’ll lament when St. Paul begins to smell like NYC.
March 23rd, 2025 at 5:38 am
I’m old enough to remember when construction of 35E through St Paul was halted because rich people in Crocus Hill were anti-interstate. The compromise was the 45 mph joke of a “parkway “. The more things change the more they stay the same.