Once again, some Sunflower County residents are on the verge of refusing to pay for their refuse services.
Pollock Road resident Rosemary Murphy is not happy with the quality of service being provided by Resourceful Environment Services, the county's garbage collection source and on Monday she told the county supervisors that she had thought about deducting from her payments, but was told she could not do that. At Monday's Sunflower County Board of Supervisors meeting, Murphy said her garbage was not picked up for two weeks. She also said that her dumpster sat in her yard from July 4 to July 12, smelled horrible and developed maggots. “The dumpster was there so long—nine days—that the grass died under it in my front yard,” she said.
Murphy said this was not the first time; she had documented other dates in December 2018, March, May and July of this year where her trash was not picked up. She added that when RES did pick up her trash it was rarely on the scheduled day.
She recalled several excuses presented to her by the service including the truck broke down and an employee quit. “I feel that I should be reimbursed for the many weeks I had no service,” she said.
The Pollock Road resident reasoned that in such an instance a good manager would have and should have found a way to get a truck out to service the customers even if he had to man it himself. Addressing District 3 Supervisor Dennis Holmes, Murphy said, “If it was your company Dennis, you would go out yourself and drive that truck.”
Holmes asked if the board could authorize a reimbursement, but County Administrator Gloria McIntosh told him that anytime a customer asks for a refund it should go through a due process hearing. Board Attorney Johnny McWilliams agreed that it would be best to allow the matter to go through the hearing process.
Murphy told the county leaders that she would prefer just to have her garbage picked up on time. “I just want my service, she said. Murphy suggested that the members consider changing to a different service and offered a word of advice. “A cheaper bid is not always the best company,” she said.
McWilliams also added that a letter should be sent to RES regarding the customer complaints because they have been advised before that the citizens and members of the board are unhappy with their service. Solid Waste Clerk Tancy Walters said she has received several complaints against RES.
President Glenn Donald told Murphy she should never wait this long again to bring her concerns before the Supervisors and if she ever has trouble with her garbage being picked up she should call the county and they would send someone out to collect her garbage and address the matter with RES.
Neil Smith, a Fox Road resident voiced a similar complaint about the garbage pick up provider, but had what he deemed a more pressing issue to take up with the county leaders— persistent flooding— on his road.
Smith told the county decision makers that the flooding on his road is directly related to the way the road is maintained and the condition of the ditches. He complained of sizeable trees growing in the ditch in front of his property. “There's no wonder we have water problems,” he said.
Smith said he has owned the property for a year and in that time no maintenance has been done on the ditches. He said they have not been sprayed or cut and nothing has been done to improve the drainage.
Smith told the leaders that the roads are not graded properly. “Make a crown. It's just ridiculous,” he said. Smith said the road workers are basically leaving a trench in the road that retains water by pushing the gravel off to the sides. “We've got enough gravel on the shoulder of the road, if you were to go back and reclaim it, you could raise the level of Fox Road about two feet,” he said.
Smith also talked about the buckshot mud on the road in front of his house and how it makes getting in and out of his house “kind of tricky.”
District 2 Supervisor Riley Rice told Smith the issue is that the county just needs to start maintaining the roads better. Smith suggested. “You first need to train somebody how to run a bulldozer.”
Although the west side of Fox Road is in Bolívar County, the east side is in Sunflower County District 4, so Donald assured Smith that Supervisor Anthony Clark would get it straightened out.
