As with any other town, if your pick up is Thursday and its a holiday, pick up is ALWAYS the next day "Friday" - As for a snowstorm, I am not even sure why they weren't out collecting later that day or the next day "Friday" - Yet again communication within the town is lacking

No offense because I understand your frustration but when you have issues with your electric, is it more logical to call the electric company or the town to find out when it will be turned back on? How about when you have issues with your cable or telephone or any other utility? Had the DPW been providing the service, I could understand calling the town but they don't so the time spent calling the town should have been spent calling the hauler directly instead. Chances are that a simple call to the hauler would have saved you both time and frustration and they would have let you know that, due to inclement weather, they wouldn’t be coming out to collect the garbage and would have provided you with an alternate date. Sure the town COULD have that information, but I don’t think it is their responsibility. Once they contracted it out, they turned the responsibility of providing information to customers (or residents in this case) over to the service provider.

What should have happened was that the hauler should have called the town to let them know their plans for pick up so the town could pass that information along. Would have saved a lot of time for all concerned. Better still, there should be a contingency plan in place ahead of time for situations such as this and that information should have been made available when this company first took over.

Laura is the town receptionist, Elia is the administrator. Tammy when the garbage was first contracted out (without the majority of the taxpayers knowing what was going on), there was a resident who asked those questions. Bottom line is the contract says the contractor can decide if and when to pick up recyclables and garbage, and does not have to notify anyone of their change of plans. The resident went onto ask if the mayor and council expected the residents to drag their trash in and out everyday until it was picked up. The mayor and council asked why the residents would do that, and the taxpayer replied that because there is an ordinance saying garbage cannot be out more than 24 hours. Consider yourself lucky you didn't get a ticket. As for information made available we didn't even know the contract was awarded, a lot of angry residents attended that meeting and were told it was a done deal. Anyone know if we are paying the contractor less now that they only come out twice a month for recyclables? Who authorized that? Wouldn't that have been a change in the contract

The picking up of the recyclables every other week is basically the same thing as the old way. U had to hold onto your glass for two weeks & your paper for two weeks. The cost is still the same because the hauler is still picking up the same amount of product. If you remember correctly the town used to donor the same way, twice a month. Once again the town failed to notify the public about the change. The hurler did not just decide to start picking up every other week. I just wonder why in a buthole town with buthole leadership and a buthole school system the biggest complaint is the garbage pickup....get your priorities straight people

Another clueless resident...

Last Friday was also my day for garbage collection. And it was picked up as scheduled. I don't know what your problem was. You might have put it out too late.

I was one of the residents that were not picked up on Friday, understandable because my roads was not plowed until 9:30...yes, 9:30. It was pretty simple though, I left my garbage out and it was picked up first thing Tuesday morning...problem solved

Regretful-Regarding your roads not being plowed until 9:30, there has to be a certain amount of snow on the roads in order for plowing to be useful. In addition, not everybody's road can be the first to be plowed. My husband works for another town and he was called into work at around 3:45 a.m. You have to figure in time for the crews to get in, get their trucks loaded and get on the road. I understand the frustration and how it can seem as if they aren't doing anything but it's just not the case. I do agree with you that garbage pickup is the least of this town's worries.

This is not about whether the garbage got picked up. It's about the town's social compact with its citizens: we pay our taxes and they represent us. It appears from this story, however that Hopatcong's mayor and council would rather not be bothered. As residents, we have no contractual relationship with the hauler like we do with JCP&L or Cablevision; that relationship exists between the town and the hauler on our behalf. Unfortunately, the attitude that pervades Borough Hall is that they have no responsibility for the service whatsoever except to pay the bill. The truth is that we should be able to call Borough Hall with our concerns and questions, confident that they'll make a genuine effort to address the issue instead of giving us the bum's rush.

Beachbum, a missed pick up due to holiday or inclement weather is not always the next day. Our street did not receive the yearly newsletter, we had to go in & pick one up or go online. We're scheduled for Wednesday garbage pick ups, however, the "make up days" are Friday. We also put our garbage and recycling out on the evening before pick up because the trucks come down our street at 5:40am.
It is quite frustrating not being informed, however, the 1st time our street wasn't picked up or was missed completely, I called the town & they were polite and told me we need to call Roselle ourselves and gave me the number to call. I found the staff answering the phones were extremely rude!

Tammy, I do understand and agree about the response time, many factors come into play to effectively plow & salt our roads. On that note, our workers were called in around 4:30,after a couple of inches of snow had already fallen, an hour before Fridays morning traffic would begin, at that point we lost. I don't like to be so negative but I remember this town when it was good, u could throw out anything u wanted, u would see a your street plowed every hour and a half, and the asphalt guys would fix potholes almost as they happened. Now u pay to throw out basically everything, I don't see a plow for 4 hrs at a time and I had to wait 3 months to have a curb replaced. It's just sad to see happen

We pay taxes. The town should be able to communicate with all the vendors and provide information to the citizens of Hopatcong. No excuse!

I had an issue last year with not receiving postal mail because my emptied garbage cans were left three feet out in the street, one right in front of my mailbox. I called the town hall, was referred to the DPW and was given the number of the hauler. I called and I was abruptly/sarcastically asked if I left my cans out at my mailbox. Seriously.

I had an experience like this with the town and garbage company right after Sandy. My garbage was to be picked up on Friday but with everything going on I was not sure that they would be picking up. I called the town on Thursday. The women who answered said that they did not have that information but i should call the company directly. She provided me their phone number and then asked me to give her a call back once I called. She lives on the same side of town and wanted to know too! Was so annoyed by her. I felt like I was doing her job!!

Do what, unfortunately so many do, pull it back by the junk cars and boats, and toss a blue tarp over it! I wish this wasn't true, but I see it every day and so do you!

Unfortunately, this is seems to be a multifaceted problem. Before garbage collection was privatized, the DPW picked up the garbage. If there was very heavy snow, they would sometimes skip the garbage pickup to concentrate on snow removal. When the garbage collection was privatized, several DPW workers were laid off and, as I understand it, offered jobs with Suburban. Now, we have fewer DPW workers than befor privatization and we have refuse collectors who no longer work for the borough. During good weather, this works out fine for residents (although I don't know how it worked out for the laid off and rehired workers) but when there's heavy snow, there aren't enough DPW workers to do the kind of job that they did when I first moved to town in 1985. I don't have Friday garbage pickup so I wasn't impacted by the missed collection but, for the first time in recent memory, I was unable to leave my house at 4:30 AM because roads had not been plowed--not even once. I'm certainly not saying that roads should be down to blacktop during a heavy snow but they certainly shouldn't have 5+ inches of snow on them, especially not the more heavily traveled roads like Brooklyn Mountain Road. I was an hour late to work on Friday because I couldn't get out of town even though county roads and Route 80 were perfect. I left a message and sent an e-mail to the DPW, neither of which were answered although I did receive a "read receipt" from Ron Jobeless. We need to reverse privatization.

Believe the mayor signed a five year contract and sold the trucks.

Just let the cans fall over and the trash blow around... That seems to be acceptable to many home owners on Lakeside Blvd... That's a whole different topic.

A comment from the Borough on their Facebook Page regarding the rescheduling of garbage pickup from the last storm:

Hopatcong Borough: "Please let us know when and if that ever happens again so that we can contact them."

Made me laugh.