LaPorte County board presses Waste Connections on missed pickups; approves loan resolution

LaPorte County Solid Waste District board members pressed Waste Connections representatives on service shortfalls and communication lapses at a special meeting on Aug. 20, and later voted to approve an amended resolution to pursue a five-year loan for equipment.

Board members opened the meeting with roll call and moved quickly to questions for the vendor’s team, introduced by a Fordens district manager who said Kyle Pennington was the company’s division vice president and named other local operations staff. District members said they learned of a corporate acquisition only after local supervisors were replaced and that the district was not told in advance.

“We were never communicated,” a district representative said; a vendor representative apologized and said the acquisition of regional brands (including Pinecone and Stafford’s) was intended to preserve local names and operations. The vendor added, “I should've came over here myself and communicated that directly,” acknowledging the district was not proactively informed.

The bulk of the meeting focused on contract performance. District staff cited the contract’s 48-hour missed-pickup requirement (page 10, section 21 b) and noted the district had begun issuing fines for persistent missed collections. Vendor staff said performance has improved from an earlier transition period and that some fines would be contested while others were accepted. The vendor attributed many problems to a customer-service systems change and internal staffing/training gaps.

Board members and vendor representatives discussed specific service issues: the pickup of recyclables placed outside carts, the required return location for carts (at the edge of driveways or public access), and inconsistent handling of tickets when other haulers’ cards are used. The vendor said tablets in trucks allow drivers to place notes and that an upgrade to allow external cameras is pending; that video can be used to verify perceived misses.

On operations and safety, the district raised incidents involving one-way streets and a recent accident near a school bus. The vendor emphasized a safety-first policy and outlined equipment options — from smaller rear-loaders to Corrado front-load trucks with arms that can operate from the left side — and said additional trucks have been leased and others ordered to increase spare coverage.

To improve communications, the vendor committed to practical changes: assigning a direct contact for the district’s service tickets (Ashley), transitioning from Wufoo tickets to an integrated system called Ace for faster responses, sending end-of-day wrap-up emails, and deploying morning and afternoon reports to flag issues earlier. The vendor also said it was evaluating properties for a local satellite site to house seven to eight vehicles and reduce response times.

Late in the meeting the board considered and unanimously approved an amended resolution to pursue a five-year loan (identified in the meeting as resolution 2025-01) to support equipment purchases such as a payloader. A motion to approve the amended resolution was made and seconded and carried by voice vote.

The board also approved the minutes of the July 16 meeting earlier in the session and adjourned after setting a regular September meeting date. The district said it will monitor vendor commitments (daily emails, ticket response time, camera deployment and satellite-site progress) and expects faster incident notification going forward.

What’s next: The district and vendor will implement the agreed communications practices and track performance over the coming weeks; the resolution authorizes pursuit of a loan but staff said financing has not yet been secured and details of amounts and terms remain to be determined.