For the last couple of years, the City of North Miami has privatized some of its sanitation services by contracting with the company Waste Pro. Since many other cities are also considering privatizing their sanitation services, including North Miami Beach, I decided to conduct an informal and unofficial survey (with SurveyMonkey.com) to see if North Miami residents are satisfied with the services of Waste Pro.
If you’re interested in participating in this survey, please click here.
Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world’s leading questionnaire tool.
Once the data is collected, I will have the results analyzed and post them in a future column.
Just for the heck of it, of course.
Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”
Here on the East Side, I didn’t even know the city changed anything with my garbage pickups until about two months after the switch. I was in my driveway and noticed the trucks were different.
A neighbor told me the city privatized everything and was saving a lot of money in the process.
We were pleasantly surprised when we noticed how much lower the cost is.
This was a no brainer. Our taxes in North Miami are way too high.
Our City Officials finally did something right.
I filled out the survey because I want to support this website and all the terrific work it does. These surveys aren’t very scientific. I just had to say that.
I responded that I am very satisfied with my sanitation service and the company that provides it.
I really like the cheaper price. Why didn’t we do this years ago? Does anyone know?
I laughed out loud when one of the questions asked me whether I like Waste Pro or not. That is a very strange question.
Who cares if I like them or not? They pick up my garbage!
I responded truthfully that I neither like them or dislike them.
The survey template I used was a general one for a service industry. Of all the templates SurveyMonkey offered, this one best fit what I was trying to accomplish. For a fee, surveys can be customized to suit the user’s specific needs; however, I didn’t want to spend any money so I simply chose from the menu of free templates. I could have deleted that question had I been paying more attention, but I really didn’t think it required that much deep thought. 🙂
So cool of you to make that effort (go Stephanie). Well… I hear the city wants to privatize everything… I mean the mess I hear they are in financially… and Stephanie you wrote that very good blog on Waste Pro a while ago I think is worth reading for everyone: https://www.votersopinion.com/2012/02/20/omg-what-a-coincidence/ – among another you wrote too that called into question certain “things”
And… I hear there is more than meets the eye with the BP privatization – and outside of whether or not the garbage is picked up correctly (find out for yourself if you care to accept that assignment :)…. Indeed privatization has many sides and should be transparent like everything else … Especially since BP has that word “transparency” on their patrol cars (um, any updates on the police resignations? 🙂 )! Happy weekend… going to take my trash out.
OH – On another note, I think someone should mention North Miami Manager Johnson’s severance pay… 60K for walking into new job… The Mayor seems insulted they were even discussing it… makes you wonder…Carol and Scott were shocked he was even asking for it…Carol additionally concerned about the budget and where they were going to get money to defend themselves against MOCA – but hey, he asked for three months severance! — Do the math and he was making all told more than 250K with benefits … and now wants “severance” for quitting for a new job… but yes he saved the city taxpayers money on their garbage pick up. 🙂
Is North Miami Beach still talking about privatizing garbage? Haven’t they been talking about it for the last 3 years?
What “sides” are there to this issue? A private company can do it as good or better for millions cheaper every year.
Is the city commission and city manager in that city so freaking stupid or arrogant that they think their residents don’t want to save millions of dollars?
The biggest proponent of privatization, the mayor, has no intention of passing those savings on to the customers (who pay for service by fee, not by taxes). His publicly stated intention is to charge the same fees and divert the savings to other cash-strapped, tax-funded departments, specifically Leisure Services. So if you use those services, this will be a win for you, but you will not pay any less money. If you don’t use those services, you’ll be paying the same amount and will not get any benefit from the savings whatsoever. BTW, we have a city council, not a city commission, and this idea was born long before our current city manager was around. Just saying.
Same as I hear in Biscayne Park, but you’d have to ask around for the facts on how they are doing that, whether it is as public or not… or if just some folks have figured all that out, I don’t know. Also can you divert funds like that, or must you have a public meeting on it, vote, etc? Or is it just like how the libraries gave money to the museums? Inquiring minds…