ST. LOUIS — Trash is piling up on St. Louis streets during the ongoing garbage truck shortage. Now, some say certain parts of the city are getting preferential treatment for pick-up. The city is denying that claim.
"I don't think it's fair,” 20th Ward Alderwoman Cara Spencer said.
She calls herself a whistleblower.
"We are giving particular wards preferential treatment, and that's really an alarming accusation, it's an alarming set of facts when you look at them,” she said.
Here's her set of facts: she says a garbage truck driver sent her a map of a route, and on it, there's a note that reads, "Ward 23 priority first.”
Spencer said that's evidence of special treatment.
"I think it's cause for looking into what's really going on here."
But the city says that one map doesn't paint the full picture of the entire trash problem and how they're handling it.
"I have no priority of one ward over the other,” Streets Director Jamie Wilson said.
Wilson says trucks do prioritize some areas if they were missed on previous pick-up days.
"It's kind of atypical operation at this point but we're keeping up in any way we can,” he said.
And he says keeping up doesn't mean picking up unfairly.
"Helping one ward hurts another, and I work for all 28 wards. It does me no service to treat one better than the other."
More trash trucks are on the way. The city is expected to have 15 new trucks by the end of the year to help fix the problem.
