Granite County to eliminate solid-waste manager position; commissioners to assume duties and press for dump cleanup

Granite County commissioners voted to eliminate the county’s solid-waste manager position effective July 1 and said the board will assume management duties while staff rewrite job descriptions and seek budget adjustments.

The change, proposed as a cost-saving measure, was presented at a public meeting where commissioners said eliminating the position would save roughly $26,000. A commissioner made the motion to remove the post and another commissioner seconded it; the commission later confirmed a plan to absorb the manager duties into the commission’s responsibilities and to review clerk and job-description updates for related positions.

Why it matters: county officials and residents raised operational concerns about the county landfill during the same meeting, including delayed private hauler pickups, overflowing metal containers, litter blown from dump sites and safety hazards. Commissioners linked the personnel change to a need for clearer oversight and for immediate cleanup steps.

Solid-waste supervisor John Kendall described repeated problems at the county sites, saying metal recycling containers had not been emptied for “three weeks” in some cases, that litter was accumulating on adjacent hillsides and that private contractors had reported equipment and staffing problems. Commissioners proposed budgeting extra relief hours for landfill relief staff, asking the supervisor to identify how many relief hours would be needed to maintain litter pickup, and directing staff to pursue better service agreements with private scrap haulers.

Commissioners discussed enforcement and contract remedies. One commissioner asked staff to pursue alternatives to the existing scrap-metal contractor if pickups did not become timely, and to consider placing additional containers or a separate contract so large items like refrigerators could be removed promptly.

Public-safety concerns were raised by a county safety officer and echoed by commissioners, who said the county needs visible progress within a short timeframe. The commission asked the solid-waste supervisor to begin a “good-faith” cleanup and to report back; commissioners set a 10-working-day expectation for substantial progress and discussed possible disciplinary steps if conditions did not improve.

The commission also told the supervisor he should bring a specific hour estimate for relief workers during the next budget cycle; commissioners said they would consider adding those hours in the coming fiscal-year budget to sustain ongoing cleanup.

What’s next: The personnel change becomes effective July 1. The commission instructed staff to send a written notice to affected employees, to prepare updated job descriptions for administrative roles, and to bring options for alternate scrap-metal contractors and a relief-hours budget request to a future meeting.

Speakers quoted in this story spoke during the commission meeting; quoted attributions reflect the meeting transcript.