Quantcast
Advertisement

Norwalk DPW limping, management-wise

July 3, 2013
–
Nancy Guenther Chapman
Norwalk Department of Public Works Director Hal Alvord talks to Common Council members Tuesday.

NORWALK, Conn. – The Norwalk Department of Public Works is short staffed as it handles the transition to single-stream recycling, DPW Director Hal Alvord said Tuesday.

Waste Programs Manager Alison McCrady, who had been handling the transition, is on leave, Alvord said, and Superintendent of Operations Chris Okafor resigned in March.

He is skeptical that McCrady will return.

“Her parents live in Idaho, both of them are very elderly,” he said. “She is going out to help with them and see what she can do to facilitate their circumstances.”

McCrady had been involved with single-stream recycling “from the beginning,” he said.

“We’re having to take responsibilities and spread those out to other people,” he said. “I have no superintendent, no waste programs manager. Fortunately we’ve got some good people working hard to try and make things better for the city.

More Stories

Comments

7 responses to “Norwalk DPW limping, management-wise”

  1. Whos on first

    Wait, what? No waste program manger? Well why would Mr. Alvord need a waste program manager if the entire program has been outsourced to a private for profit comapany for the next decade or two? Does not the contract specify the single stream program was to be implemented and paid for by the for profit? Please someone fill in the blanks. Must’ve missed that memo.

  2. diane lauricella

    Me thinks the man dost protesteth too much!
    Did the Council DPW Committee know about these personnel probs ? The timing could not be at a worse time considering the startup of a major waste management program and speaks to wholesale management issues. If Chris and Alison are no longer functioning, who is overseeing vendors like City Carting?

    Where is the Council Personnel Committee? It appears that an investigation about deep management issues should begin

  3. Ken P Jr

    They NEED to keep emptying the little bins like it or not. Not everyone even recieved a big one yet. I own a 2 family house and only got one, another duplex up the street got NONE! What is wrong with these people. Blaming it on a lack of personell is ridiculous. Its a lack of common sense, something very common in Norwalk.

  4. 0ldtimer

    DPW has been limping, management wise, since Alvord got the top management job. On another thread, he justified the mistake made delivering the bins by claiming they had peosple who came half way across the country using a rental truck and a map. Once again, he proves privatizing is not the best way to do some jobs. Wasn’t deliverying the bins City Carting’s responsibility ? Surely they have local people who could do the job better with City Carting Co trucks.

  5. Fred Sanford

    In the last 25 years education spending in this city has quadrupled and DPW spending has been cut 50%. Hal has been doing a pretty good job on a shoestring budget year after year trying to keep this city from falling apart as the education system continues to bleed the city dry while producing the same results.

  6. 0ldtimer

    You forget that all the jobs DPW used to do have been outsourced and now show as capital projects. Think GARBAGE COLLECTION, ROAD PAVING, LINE PAINTING, ETC.

  7. Fred Sanford

    Even the outsourced components and the associated expenses with those are growing at a very tiny fraction of the education system, which will see the city’s infrastructure fall apart so that we can pay fat pensions to people who work part time in the name of the children.

Leave a Reply

Newsletter

Secret Link