As the Director of the Lakeshore and Lake Park Avenues Business Improvement District, I’m in charge of keeping us looking good by working with the contractors who do the landscaping and sidewalk sweeping and provide security.

Of course, Waste Management is in charge of emptying our city receptacles during the week and the City is in charge of that contract.

While Waste Management finds itself in the business of breaking its once-powerful Teamster Local rather than picking up our trash, the little green bins on the city sidewalks have been overflowing. I have called the City’s Public Works Agency, and they have been coming to our rescue as often as they can despite all the trash piling up all over Oakland.

So I decided to take a jaunt down to Waste Management’s quaint little office at 172 98th Avenue to find out (after waiting 15 minutes on hold) who’s in charge and when they think they might want to fulfill their contract. There I saw the huddled pickets outside the office parking lot and honked in support.

Then I pulled into the lot and was immediately confronted with camera-toting, orange-vest-wearing professional security. They demanded to know what I was doing there and why was I parking in their lot.

So I told them I came to ask someone in the office when they would start picking up the trash on Lakeshore, which they had been contracted to do. One of these orange-vested guys told me that the public is not allowed into the offices of the greater Waste Management company. The impression I got was that some fed-up citizens had already visited their offices to personally deliver their trash.

The reason, according to one of these orange-vested types, that the building is closed is that some residents have come to the office to complain loudly about inflated bills—as any bill from Waste Management is at this point. Then this fellow leaned toward me and suggested some sort of sabotage. ”Get it?” he said. When I said I didn’t, he explained that the union workers had decided to sabotage the company by marking up residents’ bills to inflame their customers. I told him I didn’t think that was the reason folks were so mad.

I did finally get an audience (out in the parking lot) with another member of the goon squad who told me that they were doing what they could, did not want any information about my complaint, and he would not give me his name but wanted to know mine. Then he nodded his head toward the little group of pickets leaning on their signs and implied that they were impeding service and were the cause of all our complaints.

All of these guys with cameras and vests are with a company called IMAC (International Management Assistance Corporation), which specializes in “supplemental and replacement labor.” If you check their website, they appear to be professional scabs—big business these days.

By the next day, after another call to the beleaguered Public Works crew, our sidewalks were clean again. My garbage was picked up a day late but still it did get picked up, unlike the dumpsters outside many apartment buildings around International Blvd. and many other parts of Oakland.

I understand that our Mayor and our Council President have been in meetings and negotiations with both sides. City Attorney John Russo is collecting complaints. You can call 238-SAVE for general garbage and recycling problems.

But I’m not sure if any of this will help solve the problem that Waste Management decided to thrust upon us and its union workers.

Back during the energy crisis (is it over?) a number of us lobbied EBMUD to take over our electric utilities. The EBMUD Board was not willing to stick their necks out in front of powerful PG&E (powerful, that is, except when it rains, or the wind blows or, oh, just about anything) and watch PG&E attempt to chop them off. Even though EBMUD is one of the best-run water agencies in the country and Los Angeles has its own energy company (which makes money for the city and county), we have come to take it for granted that private megacorporations should control our everyday utilities.

Maybe it’s time to rethink that idea. Heck, Green Bay, Wisconsin, even has its own football team.

One of the things I would see in my model city is a municipal garbage company with unionized workers. Maybe it’s time for a task force on that.