Washoe County has been inundated with complaints about its new agreement with Waste Management and the company's difficulty serving customers during winter weather. Our reporter Bob Conrad, of ThisisReno.com, has the details.
It was called a perfect storm. Just as Waste Management was rolling out its new single-stream recycling to unincorporated parts of Washoe County, it also struggled to maintain services to residents due to snowfall during recent storms.
The county’s new franchise agreement, approved by commissioners in November, had been in the works for more than a year. But commissioners, including chair Bob Lucey, say the company's roll out of the agreement could have been smoother.
“We were looking for what the roll-out was going to be, and we were working toward what that communication to the residents was going to be," said Lucey, "and so there’s been some challenges over the holidays, and they needed time to order the trucks and cans, so there was some preparation before we signed the agreement that needed to be in place.”
Washoe County Assistant Manager Kevin Schiller says that about half of county staff time, over the past several weeks, has been spent dealing with customer service issues regarding Waste Management.
The company’s spokesperson Kendra Kostelecki says they are looking to make improvements.
“We are part of a test market to improve our communications," said Kostelecki. "We are developing a more nimble system to alert people that they can opt into, email and text, so unfortunately we don’t that available now.”
The volume of complaints has prompted the county to consider other waste haulers.