Treegate Is Over, Milwaukee Will Pick Up Christmas Trees

A garbage truck in a Milwaukee alley. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

The furor over a seemingly abrupt decision not to pick up discarded Christmas trees reached a crescendo at City Hall Monday morning.

“I’m pissed off, “said Alderman Lamont Westmoreland, summarizing the mood of the Common Council during a special meeting of the Public Works Committee. At the meeting, eight members, a majority of the council, blasted the decision and how it was communicated. Concerns were raised about fairness to residents and the likelihood of a surge in illegal dumping.

The anger expressed by Westmoreland, his colleagues and their constituents worked.

The Department of Public Works (DPW) is backing off a plan to stop picking up Christmas trees, a 30-year-old practice, in favor of a drop-off center plan.

“We hear you loud and clear,” said sanitation services manager Rick Meyers, pledging to find a way to offer curbside tree pickup even if it costs more.

The snowballing issue started rolling last Christmas. A complaint caused the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to investigate the city’s practice of collecting natural trees alongside other garbage and sending them to landfills. The DNR affirmed that the trees are not “household decorations” as the city and others had long regarded them, but instead “yard waste” and therefore subject to a state law that bans placing them in landfills. Yard waste must be mulched or otherwise kept out of landfills, which would require DPW to pick it up with its own vehicle.

A notice of non-compliance was issued to the city in January.

It’s what happened next, or didn’t happen, that triggered Monday’s heated meeting.

DPW waited until Dec. 4 to inform the council and the public of the issue, a decision Meyers said he would handle differently if he could do it again.

But DPW had worked on the issue internally, he told the committee.

“We got in touch with the [city’s lobbying team] and our City Attorney’s office, and we were trying to figure out if the state’s interpretation had changed and [whether] this should be a public rule-making process or not,” said the city’s trash czar of the potential to block or delay the DNR decision. He said the DNR clarification will also cause issues for other communities.

The DNR held a partner workgroup meeting in February, which Meyers said resulted in the city’s expectation that the DNR would issue public guidance that Milwaukee and other communities could point to.

“Nothing came out,” said Meyers of the DNR’s public communication.

But council members are frustrated that nothing then came out of DPW.

“We are trying to fix the problem, as opposed to trying to point fingers and serve up heads on platters,” said committee chair Ald. Robert Bauman after the meeting. Bauman intends to introduce a resolution for Tuesday’s full council meeting requiring DPW to pick up the trees.

Meyers, earlier in the meeting, said DPW was weighing its options. Bauman said his resolution would help DPW decide.

“Our intent was to drive people to our drop-off centers,” said Meyers. He said Chicago successfully collects 20,000 trees annually with a drop-off network. Meyers said DPW delayed announcing the change until it had confirmed where the additional, unstaffed drop-off facilities would be.

Meyers, in response to a question from Alderwoman Milele A. Coggs, said it was his decision not to go public earlier. He said he had informed Commissioner Jerrel Kruschke, who was not present for Monday’s meeting, and decided not to announce the issue during the budget process or at any prior, regularly-scheduled Public Works Committee meetings.

“These are the things we expect to be told to us in a timely fashion. That’s really unacceptable,” said Council President José G. Pérez.

“We’re getting broadsided by it, the council had no knowledge of this and we are now hamstrung in our efforts to communicate what is going on,” said Ald. Jonathan Brostoff of the fact that, starting Dec. 1, the upcoming election limits the ability of council members to send notices to their constituents. “It really puts us in a bad situation.”

Coggs said if residents had known earlier they might have decided to purchase an artificial tree. She said businesses selling trees also might have made different choices.

“I am concerned what’s going to happen with people that still don’t get the message, put that tree out and how much of a mess that is going to make in the city and how much that is going to cost us to clean it up,” she said.

“We didn’t necessarily agree with the Department of Natural Resources,” said Meyers.

“We don’t agree either,” said Ald. Russell W. Stamper, II. “You’ve been doing it for 30 years. Just keep doing it.”

“I really hate piling on,” said Ald. Mark Borkowski, to laughter from his colleagues. “This is amateur hour.

“I go back to the original question of why city government exists. It’s customer service. What do people pay taxes for? Customer service,” said the alderman. “I am embarrassed, and I am discouraged.”

“How is it that constituents were given the worst Christmas surprise they could ever get?” asked Ald. Scott Spiker. “Our concern… was that we did not want to be considered out of compliance, however, [the DNR is] is realizing, slowly perhaps, that this does have major implications for communities.”

No cost estimate was available for how much cleanup would cost, in part because the city doesn’t know how many trees it normally picks up.

The cleanup, said Meyers, is likely to be achieved by what is considered a third pickup crew. Currently, one crew picks up recycling and another garbage. A third crew would pick up just trees.

But as longtime residents know, the timing of those pickups depends on the weather. Pickup crews also serve as the city’s snow-plowing team.

“We can schedule overtime and get this done through segregated crews,” said Meyers. “If that plan blows up because of snow and ice, we can still do the best we can and clean up the rest… I think the state would still say we are progressing.”

Bauman said his resolution, subject to council approval, would give the department the ability to dispose of the trees as it sees fit, so long as they’re picked up.

DNR officials, in a press conference Wednesday, said they know DPW might not be able to get to 100% compliance this year.

Representatives of the state agency also said they would collect data on what other communities are doing to dispose of Christmas trees. “We have discovered that maybe it’s not just the City of Milwaukee at all. It might be a more widespread misunderstanding,” said Brad Wolbert, DNR waste and materials program director.