DEARBORN, Mich. (WXYZ) — Aug. 1 marks one month since Priority Waste took over service for 73 community GFL contracts. Since then, complaints have been rolling in from across the state of Michigan.
On Wednesday, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud took to Facebook to say enough is enough.
"Our residents are getting extremely frustrated. Our call center cannot sustain the number of calls that are coming in each day about missed pick-ups," the mayor told 7 News Detroit.
Hear more from Hammoud in the video below:
The mayor said Priority Waste services in Dearborn are one full day behind and to date, the city has not paid Priority Waste.
He continued that the city of Dearborn will now bill Priority Waste for the time city employees have spent helping with waste backlog.
"Right now, I don’t see how I can go to my residents and tell them I’m not sure when you can expect your garbage, recycling to be picked up and me continually cut a check to a vendor who promised to pick it up on a weekly basis in a promptly manner," Hammoud said.
All of this comes after the Dearborn Public Works team met with Priority Waste earlier in the day Wednesday.
Hammoud also told 7 News Detroit that he knows mayors across Michigan who are frustrated.
"I can tell you West Bloomfield for example is executing their performance bond for 1.5 million from GFL when they dropped the ball on transition," Hammoud said.
7 News Detroit went to the Priority Waste headquarters to ask their response.
"I think it’s a little disingenuous to say you wanted everything perfect on day one. That was never going to happen. It was never communicated," said Matt Allen, director of public relations and government affairs for Priority Waste.
Dearborn's mayor had also told 7 News Detroit that he believes, "There has to be a level of accountability to a vendor that took on 70-plus cities knowing that they may be 100 personal short."
When 7 News Detroit asked Allen about that he said, "That’s a wrongful assertion really."
Hear more from Allen in the video below:
He continued to say, "As everyone knows, we communicated this was not going to be a single-day fix or even weeks, 21 days just to clear away the backlog and 60 to 90 days to fix the fleet."
Allen insisted that Priority Waste has been transparent since before July 1 that it would take time to get services up to date and improvement is happening.
Priority Waste told Dearborn that they should see improvements by September.
"We’ve also brought in lease vehicles that we could find here in the Midwest to come in because it was a disaster. We inherited a disaster as part of the purchase from GFL," Allen said. "We’ve been addressing it, we’ve been the fix."
Hammoud said in order to pay Priority Waste, "What you need to see is very simple: put out your garbage on Monday, your recycling and it gets picked up on Monday."
The city of Dearborn has started a Google form where residents can report if their garbage has been missed. Click here to access it.
