Pinole mayor weighs in as trash pickup slowly resumes

The nearly two-week-long garbage strike impacting thousands of homes and businesses across the Bay Area is all but over after the waste disposal company and union workers struck a tentative contract deal.

Some folks, however, are still looking for the trash to get picked up, especially in a couple of East Bay downtowns where dumpsters are stacked high and even overflowing.

Unfortunately, there are still a lot of places that have garbage piled up around Pinole and neighboring communities, but the mayor says trucks will be rolling through the weekend.

“When stuff happens like this, you have restaurants that have compostables’that are piling up,” said Pinole Mayor Cameron Sasai.

In his mid-20s, Pinole’s young mayor is shepherding his city through an age-old problem of what to do when the trash is not getting picked up. As is the case with cans right across the street from City Hall — garbage still stacking up 11 days after the strike began, and tentatively now ended.

NBC Bay Area watched as trucks rolled through some Pinole neighborhoods Saturday and grabbed garbage that some customers have been collecting for almost 20 days.

Garbage pickups will continue through the weekend, but collections have been spotty so far and dumpsters outside some businesses are still overflowing. But Pinole’s mayor says relief is on the way for everyone soon.

“The full service will continue on Monday, and that’s what I’m expecting,” said Sasai.

Republic Services also said it expects full service returned to everyone in more than two dozen Bay Area communities impacted by the strike.

The union only has a tentative approval as of now, but a local union rep who helped negotiate improved medical coverage and wages in the new tentative contract expects full support in a final vote Sunday morning.

“They’re actually really happy. It has a lot of language in there that protects them going forward,” said Gilbert Gomez, Teamsters Local 439 representative.

Folks visiting downtown Pinole for a summer Saturday evening are happy too — happy to hear all of the garbage will be gone soon before rodents become an issue.

“The last thing we need is garbage spilling out in the streets and feeding the rats,” said Mike Avalos of Pinole.

“And there are rats, and they can come to our homes if they don’t do anything about garbage pick up,” said Bianca N. of Pinole.

The mayor says he’ll try to get financial relief for homes, businesses and the city itself after the community came together to manage the trash on their own for the past two weeks.

“The cost of a labor dispute should not be on ratepayers, it should be on public servants. So I will be fighting to make sure we get relief for residents and small business owners here,” said Sasai.

Mayor Sasai says he’s already talking to Republic Services about reimbursements to ratepayers, and could introduce a resolution to the city council seeking repayments if talks fail.