{"id":71419,"date":"2019-05-31T06:28:20","date_gmt":"2019-05-31T11:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=71419"},"modified":"2019-05-31T06:41:58","modified_gmt":"2019-05-31T11:41:58","slug":"speed-bump-in-the-alley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=71419","title":{"rendered":"Speed Bump In The Alley"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A judge has ruled that Saint Paul’s Tony-Soprano-style trash collection system violates the city charter<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramsey County District Judge Leonardo Castro ordered that the system be suspended June 30 until voters can decide whether it should continue.
\u201cIt\u2019s huge,\u201d said attorney Greg Joseph, who represents three residents who sued the city. \u201cIt\u2019s the right thing. We\u2019re very, very happy.\u201d

Last year, the City Council rejected a petition from residents to put the issue up for a vote, prompting some to file suit earlier this year asking for judicial intervention.

<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Between the lines, Judge Castro ruled exactly as many of us had been saying since the beginning; that the system was a violation of the city’s charter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city\u2019s charter allows residents to petition to have ordinances put up for a vote. Critics of the city\u2019s organized trash system gathered 6,469 signatures asking that residents be allowed to vote on the ordinance governing collection, the judge said.

\u201c\u2026 A city\u2019s charter is, in effect, its local constitution,\u201d Castro wrote. \u201c\u2026 Here, there is no evidence in the record that the petition presented in October 2018 was deficient in anyway. [City leaders] concede that the petition was sufficient. Consequently, it was an improper exercise of power for the Council to refuse to place the Referendum on the November 2019 ballot.\u201d

<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

More and more, Saint Paul’s government seems to look up to Chicago as its role model. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime – half of the haulers that were pummeled into the system have left, with many of the smaller haulers being swallowed up by larger, out of town jobbers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A mix of small companies and big corporations were among the 15 haulers that\u00a0signed a contract<\/a>\u00a0with the city in November 2017. Seven remain, including three based outside Minnesota.
The number of haulers will soon drop again. Last month, Waste Management\u00a0announced it had bought<\/a>\u00a0Florida-based Advanced Disposal Services.
The retreat of haulers is happening despite the city\u2019s pledge to preserve small businesses in the transition to organized trash collection.
\u201cThe city chose to pursue a consortium option to ensure all garbage haulers \u2014 of any size \u2014 could maintain their current market share in providing services to St. Paul residents,\u201d Lisa Hiebert, a spokeswoman for St. Paul Department of Public Works, said in a statement. \u201cThis approach was reflective of the feedback we heard from the community, and what was represented in the final council resolution.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

“Unexpectedly”, of course. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unless you’ve paid any attention to other such “partnerships”. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A judge has ruled that Saint Paul’s Tony-Soprano-style trash collection system violates the city charter: Ramsey County District Judge Leonardo Castro ordered that the system be suspended June 30 until voters can decide whether it should continue.\u201cIt\u2019s huge,\u201d said attorney Greg Joseph, who represents three residents who sued the city. \u201cIt\u2019s the right thing. We\u2019re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-st-paul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71419"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71422,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71419\/revisions\/71422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}