Receiving my trash fee bill in the mail yesterday was an exciting moment. I cheerfully opened the envelope to discover what awaited, prepared to do my civic duty and just pay the damn thing, tax or no tax, legal or not, properly budgeted or not.
To my dismay, however, the bill I got lists my household as owning two trash containers, but we only have one. The containers are billed at an annual fee of $90. This means that the city says I owe $180 for the year, when I really should only have to pay $90.
No matter, I thought: there are two phone numbers on the bill to call with questions. One is the DPW number, listed as (413) 787-6260. The other is the collector’s office, listed as (413) 787-6115. The bill says to call the DPW line "for questions about containers or discounts," but to call the collector’s office "for questions about bill payment." That’s not quite clear, but since my question pertained specifically to the number of containers listed, I decided I ought to contact the DPW.
A little less cheerful, I gave the DPW a ring. It was about 3 pm; the office is supposed to be open until 4. The number rang a few times and then disconnected with one of those rapid busy signals. I tried a couple more times with the same result.
The bills only just got mailed out yesterday, so I didn’t see how the DPW could be totally flooded with calls yet, but maybe that’s the case. I figured I would try again in the morning. Office hours start at 7 am. At 7:30 am I tried again, a few times, with the same result: a few rings, then the busy signal.
I turned next to email. Unfortunately, every email I have sent to anyone at City Hall in the last few weeks has bounced, due to the spam filter they’re using. I’ve contacted the Web admin, Eileen Foley, to ask about the problem, wondering if I’d been blacklisted as a pesky blogger. She offered to forward emails that bounce (which is every single one). My email to the DPW predictably bounced, so my only recourse was to forward it to Foley’s Gmail account (her City Hall address bounces, too), and ask her to forward the email to the DPW. In it, I asked about how to correct the inaccurate information about my container count.
A while later, I figured I would try to call the collector’s office, since calls to the DPW still won’t go through. Calling that number yields a maddeningly slow and inefficient voice mail maze to navigate. After patiently waiting through the entire listing of numbers to dial for various questions—auto-related, property-tax related, and so on—I found that there was no relevant number to dial for trash fee questions. Yet the bill specifically says to call that number if there is a billing question.
Getting increasingly irate, I went to the City Hall Web site to see if I had any other alternatives. I discovered that the trash fee FAQ page was updated just today, and it lists no fewer than 42 possible concerns, with curt, arrogant-sounding corresponding answers. Relevant to me, concern number one: "The number of containers on my trash fee bill is incorrect." Here is the information provided on that one:
The city records indicate that you have the specific numbers of city-provided containers (or dumpster spaces) at your service location. You can file a trash fee dispute form, indicating the correct number of containers at your property. Please provide the actual serial numbers for all containers assigned to your property. If any of your containers was stolen or is missing, you must file a police report and attach it with your form. The city reserves the right to inspect your property at any time to verify the actual number of containers in use.
Ah, yes, a trash fee bill dispute form (PDF).
I would like to know if the residents reserve the right to pick up the phone and call some department and scream in their ears. I was willing to pay the damn $90 fee. Now I’m pissed. Maybe not pissed enough to file a suit against the city on the fee, as some people are doing, but pissed enough to feel the good will evaporate its last few drops. I doubt anyone at City Hall cares about my good will, but they should.
Some weeks ago I visited the mayor’s office and, while waiting, overheard one side of a resident’s call to an aide seated at a desk. The angry resident was apparently upset about DPW trucks driving down her street and knocking into tree branches. The aide was trying to calm her down by getting her street name to see if maybe those trees should be trimmed. This got the caller more upset, because she seemed to think that there was something wrong with the trucks. The aide, getting more upset himself, was saying things like, "We can’t do anything about the height of the trucks. It’s the trees that need to be trimmed, so the trucks don’t knock into the branches."
The woman on the phone proceeded to curse a blue streak at the aide, who at that point was saying things like, "You don’t have to use that type of language, that’s not called for." The woman, afraid of getting in trouble somehow, did not want to divulge her street name.
Something tells me that the mayor’s office will be getting a lot of calls like this, especially as residents apparently can’t get through to the DPW, and the collector’s office has protected itself with obscure voice mail, and paperwork does not yield immediate answers.
