This clean thinking Newsdog is incensed with the state of trash removal in this Cowtown after witnessing an event last week at Independence and Montgall, where trash fell from a city trash truck and no effort was made by city employees on that truck to stop and remove the offending pile. To make matters worse, the city trash truck following the truck that lost part of its load, truck number 4884, for the record, simply drove right over the pile of trash in the middle of the street, making the matter even worse than it already was. The final straw for this News-Dog, the driver of the second truck, when asked if he was going to stop and pick it up, didn’t even slow down and yelled, and I quote: “It’s not mine.”

This isn’t the first time the Dog has witnessed trash falling from trash trucks and city workers on those trucks turning a blind eye to the dumped trash even though it’s in the middle of the street.  It certainly makes one wonder why city trash trucks are equipped with brooms and scoop shovels if they’re not going to pick up the mess they leave when trash falls from the rear of the truck or a bag breaks after it’s flung against the side of the truck from 30 feet away. Last week’s incident was doubly bad given the Dog was smart-mouthed by a city worker who was just too dog-gone lazy to pick up a mess he saw happen and made worse by driving his truck over it.

Kudos to the Independence Avenue CID’s Ambassadors for taking care of the mess when the city workers refused to clean up after themselves. We’re told the Ambassadors witness this kind of thing on a regular basis and they’re the ones who have to pick it up.

Here’s the bottom line: area neighborhood organizations and businesses have a hard enough time keeping our neighborhoods trash free without city trash collectors adding to the problem, then smart-mouthing citizens when they’re called out on their infraction. This critically thinking Newsdog thinks that if this Cowtown has enough money to advance legacy projects for the Mayor and City Council such as the toy train streetcar or a taxpayer-funded downtown hotel, then maybe we should have enough money to effectively train trash collectors in the proper execution of their duties, including picking up the messes they leave in the middle of the street.