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Residents press trustees for clearer outreach and enforcement after missed holiday pickups
Summary
Multiple Washingtonville residents told the trustees that missed holiday collections led to piled garbage and rodent problems; they urged multilingual outreach, enforcement, and expansion of the food-scrap program to multifamily housing.
During public comment on Jan. 12, residents from Washingtonville and other neighborhoods repeatedly criticized the village's holiday garbage collection schedule and outreach, describing piles of uncollected trash, rodent problems and uneven enforcement.
James Abadi (speaker 16) faulted the sanitation foreman and suggested the village needed stronger outreach to absentee landlords and non‑English speakers. "It was filthy for the holidays," Abadi said, describing holiday weeks when garbage accumulated.
Adelina Clark (speaker 18) and other commenters said printed notices, robocalls and digital signs did not prevent widespread confusion; they urged Spanish‑language outreach and active enforcement to have residents pull back trash that was left in the street during holidays. Several residents recommended expanding the village's food‑scrap pickup program to multifamily properties to reduce trash tonnage.
Village department staff (speaker 10) described the sequence that led to schedule changes—the CSEA holiday schedule informs DPW collection—and said the village had sent newsletter notices, robo calls and posted on the website; staff encouraged residents to subscribe to alerts and noted options to drop off food scraps at the recycling yard.
Trustees acknowledged communication shortcomings and urged staff to improve outreach, noting the new website and notification platform coming online in March/April that they hope will improve notification accuracy and reach.
No formal enforcement change was adopted at the meeting; trustees said staff will continue outreach and that DPW will review procedures for future holiday weeks.
