Blue Zone Garbage Collection Proceeds Monday
Friday, February 8, 2013 @ 3:58 AM
Prince George, B.C. – Prince George City Hall will be closed this coming Monday, February 11th to mark the inaugural provincial Family Day holiday, but garbage collection will remain on schedule despite the stat.
Blue zone residents in College Heights can still put their garbage curbside to be picked up on Monday. Supervisor of Solid Waste Services, Chris Bjorn, explains why collection is going ahead on the holiday. “Automated garbage residential collection schedule goes from March to the end of February, and when we made last year’s schedule (the province) hadn’t yet determined if and when the Family Day was happening. We knew it was tentative, but we had to get our schedules out already so that schedule was made up prior to the announcement. And for us to change it we’d have to alter last year’s schedule, which ends at the end of this month, plus next year’s schedule and it would affect the entire schedule. It costs a fair bit of money to print those off and it’s about service too. We thought about, well maybe we can just skip that day but then they (blue zone) would be two weeks without service and we want to keep our service levels up and be fair to all the colour zones in the city. Of course we’d probably incur quite a few complaints either way but this way at least we’re offering the service.” He says city officials figured this would be the least damaging way to handle the situation.
Bjorn says the truck drivers will be working that day “but we’re going to try to put out six trucks to get it done in a short day.” The city usually puts out five trucks but the “spare” will be put into use on this occasion. He says with six trucks and one guy per truck, it’ll take somewhere between four to six hours to get the blue zone done.
Because it’s a holiday Bjorn says those workers will get overtime, in fact he says it will be a double time premium. Bjorn adds “our other garbage services such as corporate collection will not happen that day, it’s just the residential.” He also says next year’s Family Day holiday is already scheduled as a stat on that date so the same situation won’t arise in 2014.
Comments
Because sh’s having a pissin contest with Ms. Radford, Christy picks Feb. 11 for family day? How stupid.
Feb. 18 is a stat holiday in the US, Alberta, Sask., Manitoba, and Ontario.
So we gotta be different? I thought Victoria was just full of left wings and a’holes. Seems theres a lot of idiots there as wel.
Who cares when the freaking day is but why oh why are we as tax payers paying OT for garbage pickup that day?
Sounds like the date would have been irrelevant here birdman; but don’t let that get in the way of your hate.
Anyone want to lay bets on just how “short” this “short day” will be? At double time I suspect these guys will be going slower then usual.
I think the city figured we would be in a state of mass confusion and chaos if they didn’t pick the garbage up Monday and everybody got shifted one day.
We are told: “Because itâs a holiday Bjorn says those workers will get overtime, in fact he says it will be a double time premium.”
Then we are told: “It costs a fair bit of money to print those off”.
And they were unable to figure out how to do a release which would have had a caution note included for the month of February that would indicate that there may be a new holiday in February which would mean that the second or third Monday in February would be a holiday and the collection days would be shifted accordingly.
By the time the March 2013 to February 2014 was printed, the holiday information was available.
That would have been too difficult for some 30,000 households to figure out, eh?
The problems at city hall becomes clearer each time you get a glimpse at a decision makers thought process. Spend a dollar to save a dime mentality reigns supreme at all levels it seems.
birdman:
I heard that this date was selected deliberately to encourage and support the tourism industry.
If BC had the same long weekend, that would be half the travelers.
Having BC on one week, and AB on another encourages more tourist dollars.
Why can’t they treat it as any other stat holiday,geez!
Loki, that’s what I heard as well.
I can only imagine the uproar if folks didn’t get their garbage collected on the date……..it’s a no win situation for the City.
True enough, realitycheck.
I actually agree with this decision – paying a few guys double time is for sure cheaper than reprinting and redoing the schedule. Keep in mind that this garbage would be moved anyway at some point so we are really only paying the “overtime”. small potatoes…
Still wish I could opt out of my garbage pickup and save a few dollars twice a year.
It could have been a simple letter to the blue zone folks that said they would not get garbage picked up that week. woopy ding if you miss a week and for the complainers, too bad.
Right, so we can’t get bus service on any stats (those of us who use the buses apparently don’t have anywhere important to be on those days) yet they can pay double time for garbage?
Wow.
All this complaining over 1 day of overtime for the garbage guys, really? 1 day a year.. Okay now all you complaining I hope you don’t work any overtime. If you do then zip it. It’s one day. Just let it go.. Our council gives them selves a huge raise for incompetence at least we see something being done by the garbage men..
Regional district will have the dump closed and they will have nowhere to unload their trucks! Baahahaa.
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