Sales Campaign Swirls Rumors About Harrison Sanitation Department

A sales flier handed out to Harrison vendors last week predicted the end of the Harrison Sanitation Department.

"In the near future the Harrison DPW will no longer be picking up your trash and recycling," the flier read, urging Harrison vendors to be prepared for a future without local garbage pickup for commercial establishments.

"All merchants will be required to use a private hauler," the flier continued.

The flier (attached to this article) was handed out by City Carting and Recycling, a private Connecticut-based waste management company. Vendors say they were approached by a sales representative from the company last week, who told them commercial establishments would need to pay for their own garbage pickup in the near future.

Harrison vendors were even offered a free month of garbage service with a two-year contract, according to the flier.

The only problem? The sales pitch doesn't appear to have a leg to stand on. A City Carting official denied that he knew anything about sales visits to Harrison when contacted Friday.

A City Carting sales representative whose business card was attached to at least one of flyers referred Patch to his manager. The manager, Gary Fanali, denied that he even knew about the sales campaign.

"I have no earthly idea what you're talking about," Fanali said. "I have no idea."

When pressed on the issue, Fanali said it is possible someone else from City Carting sent the sales representative into town, but declined to get into specifics or provide a way to contact that person.

"I don't know about that area of town," he said before hanging up. "I just don't know."

The visits created a whirlwind of speculation throughout town. Privatized sanitation has been discussed in years past as an option for trimming the budget and would almost certainly lead to layoffs within the Harrison DPW. Local commercial properties could also be forced to pay for their own garbage pickup, creating another expense during difficult financial times.

The rumors gained enough traction that local candidates for supervisor and town board were asked about the issue at a candidate forum Wednesday night. The issue was revisited Thursday at Harrison's town board meeting, when business owner Sam Fanelli told the board about the sales pitch made at his gas station in West Harrison.

Fanelli told the board that merchants all over town received a visit from City Carting last week, and that there were concerns over a possible change in the sanitation policy.

"I was the last one to get the flier," said Fanelli, who said he was visited on September 16. "He started on one end of town and went to the other."

The board denied that privatizing sanitation was even under consideration, adding that the issue hasn't been discussed—publicly or in executive session—in more than a year.

"There is no basis for it," Harrison Supervisor Joan Walsh said of the rumors.

So why did City Carting and Recycling decide to target Harrison?

Walsh said the carting company could have been tipped off by an internal conversation between a Harrison DPW foreman and his workers that took place earlier this month. Walsh said a "rah-rah" speech was given to a group of workers as a motivational tool, and that the conversation could have been taken the wrong way and leaked to City Carting.

"It was a motivational speech by the foreman to get the men to work harder," Walsh said. "There was no intent by the board, there was not direction by the board, there as no anything by the board."

The speech included a list of things that could happen to the department, including the possibility of privatized sanitation, Walsh said.

"It was one of a litany of other items that he was telling them could possibly happen in order to motivate them to do a better job," Walsh said.

Walsh emphasized that the board has not been in discussions to privatize sanitation at any point this year. The rest of the board emphasized that the flier was baseless, and that no changes are imminent.

"As long as I'm on this board," said Councilman Pat Vetere, "it's not going to happen."