Grosse Pointe Park officials trash what they say has been poor service from Priority Waste

GROSSE POINTE PARK — When it comes to their trash collection and recycling provider, Priority Waste, many Grosse Pointe Park officials and residents feel the company has treated the city like — well — garbage, and they’re not happy about it.

Priority Waste officials got an earful from the Park City Council when they appeared in front of it Sept. 9 to address problems residents have been experiencing since Priority Waste took over the contract from GFL this summer.

Priority Waste officials acknowledged it’s been a rocky start but said they’re working hard to improve services.

From lewd comments made by workers to residents, to missed pickups, to broken glass left in the wake of pickups, Park officials said their experiences with Priority Waste have been largely negative.

“Guys, overall, this is just a disaster,” City Councilman Tim Kolar told the Priority Waste representatives. “I don’t have any faith in you all here.”

Priority Waste Chief Development Officer Michael French, a Grosse Pointer who currently lives in Grosse Pointe City, said there have been challenges during the transition.

“We’re aware of the problems,” French said. “We’re working nonstop to right-size it, normalize it. … We see ourselves as an extension of your team.”

On July 1, Priority Waste took over the residential trash and recycling contracts that had been held by GFL, which wanted to get out of the residential side of the hauling business. As part of that deal, Dan Venet, vice president of municipal sales for Priority Waste, said they acquired GFL’s rubbish truck fleet and many of their workers.

“We were surprised by the condition of the vehicles we took over,” Venet said.

He said in the 60 days between Priority Waste’s audit of the GFL fleet and their acquisition of the same, many vehicles were poorly maintained and in some cases purposely damaged; Venet said they found mixed fluids, cut hydraulic lines and even human excrement in some of the trucks.

“There were great signs of neglect,” Venet said, adding, “Forty-seven percent of the vehicles were not safe to operate.”

He said more than 200 trucks had to be sent to repair shops in other states because there weren’t enough places locally that could work on these kinds of vehicles.

“We moved mountains in 45 days. … We’re in a much better position than we were and (we continue) to improve,” Venet said.

City Councilman Marty McMillan said he has filmed Priority Waste employees throwing bins and garbage cans. In some instances, he said it has resulted in damage, such as broken garbage can wheels.

“That is absolutely not acceptable,” said French, adding that residents whose bins or cans have been badly damaged or broken by Priority employees can request new ones at no charge from the company.

McMillan said city streets have been getting stained by oil leaking from Priority Waste vehicles as well.

French said they have a preventative maintenance schedule for their vehicles, but given the number of vehicles that were out of service when they took over from GFL, they haven’t been able to keep up that schedule as they had in the past.

“I’m excited to hear (about) the commitment you have to our community,” McMillan said.

While Priority Waste saw a 70% improvement between July and August, “We still have a long way to go,” French said.

“We totally understand the noise and the frustration,” French said.

Venet said as of earlier this month, they were just shy of having about 60 trucks awaiting a return to service.

Clinton Township-based Priority Waste had contracts with about 46 municipalities before taking over GFL’s residential customers July 1, which added another 73 communities and 70,000 individual customers to its client base.

City Manager Nick Sizeland said the city’s contract with Priority — which took over the existing contract the city had with GFL — runs until Sept. 30, 2026.

Kolar, for one, said he wouldn’t vote to renew it based on what he’s seen over the last few months.

“All I hear about are the complaints from my neighbors,” Kolar said.

Kolar asked City Attorney Daniel Kelly if they had looked at the contract and if there were any clauses in there they could apply now.

“They do not have a liquidated damages clause in the contract,” Kelly said.

Kolar said the list of concerns from him and his neighbors is long and includes that broken glass is now “all over our community — everywhere,” posing a risk to children, motorists and the many cyclists in the community.

“There have been numerous complaints … about your drivers catcalling members of our community,” Kolar said.

Venet said that type of behavior “is unacceptable” and could be grounds for a worker being terminated.

“If somebody is absurdly grotesque to the public, we don’t want them working for us,” Venet said.

Kolar demanded a letter of apology from Priority to Park residents over this issue.

He said there are also “multiple videos” residents have taken of yard waste being put into the trucks along with the trash.

Kolar said he had submitted a complaint to the Michigan Department of Attorney General, calling this “a very serious infraction.”

“The actions here are disgraceful,” Kolar told Priority leaders.

Venet said Priority has a transfer station in Detroit and a composting station, and they sort items at a different site if they need to mix trash with yard waste.

“What we’re not seeing here is quality of service, which is a real problem,” City Councilwoman Christine Gallagher said.

She said she appreciated the fact that Priority was working with city leaders to fix issues, but residents need to know when service will return to normal. Gallagher said people have had items that used to be collected by GFL that now aren’t getting picked up by Priority.

In 2020, Venet said, they started installing cameras on their trucks that not only record what’s happening with each vehicle and its personnel, but also details including how fast the trucks are going and how fast they accelerate or brake.

Venet said these cameras were intended “to keep (customers) safe … and keep us honest.”

The cameras also enable Priority Waste to know where its vehicles are at all times and monitor what’s happening.

“Words talk. Numbers scream,” French said. “We are the most transparent company I’ve ever worked for. … If we do screw up, we’re going to fix it.”

As of the Sept. 9 meeting, French told Park officials that they could supply the city with daily, real-time quality metrics.

French and Venet said it was Priority Waste’s goal to have cameras on all its trucks before the end of the year. Residents won’t have access to the footage, but they said city officials would be able to see it.

Those videos are used to show employees what they should and shouldn’t be doing.

“We try to not make the same mistake twice. … We use the videos to train our employees,” French said.

The waste hauler’s responsiveness — or lack thereof — has been a point of contention as well. As of late July, customers and others were having a difficult time reaching anyone at Priority Waste.

“I understand that in this day and age everybody wants everything within 15 minutes, so on, so forth, but when you’re dealing with 5,000 inquiries in a 10-hour day … sometimes it’s two, three, four hours before they can be answered, and sometimes the solution is already on the way, we just haven’t got to your subdivision yet or we haven’t got to your street yet,” said Matt Allen, director of public relations and government affairs for Priority. “So, we’re dealing with the normal issues, and we’re dealing with huge backlog. So, we’re doing those two things simultaneously and fixing a very broken fleet, which we inherited in the purchase.”

Priority Waste officials said the situation has improved since then. French said the phone wait time now for callers is typically less than a minute and a half.

“July was an anomaly,” French said. “It was much worse than we thought it would be. Our phone service crashed” from the large volume of calls.

Each community has a dedicated team of representatives they’ll speak with when they call Priority, French said.

Sizeland said whenever he has called Venet, he has responded promptly and addressed the concerns Sizeland has raised.

“I think the community needs to see some bigger change. … We do need to hold you accountable,” Mayor Michele Hodges said. “We do have to hold the bar high.”

The council voted unanimously in favor of a resolution penned by Hodges calling for better service, communication and responsiveness from the trash hauler. The resolution reads, in part, the “City of Grosse Pointe Park requires transparency from Priority Waste and is seeking a reduction in citizen complaints, communication from Priority Waste to residents regarding status updates and links to resources to remedy complaints, and a meeting to be scheduled with the City Manager to ensure that concerns are timely remedied.” If progress isn’t made, the council vows in the resolution to “seek other remedies.”

“We want to see a significant reduction in concerns,” Hodges said.

Residents who have questions or complaints about trash and recycling collection can call Priority Waste at (586) 228-1200 or (855) 927-8365, or submit a complaint via the company’s website, PriorityWaste.com.

Staff Writer Mark Vest contributed to this report.