Recently fired director of sanitation, city directors have differing views on landfill, recycling

The recently fired director of sanitation for the City of Fort Smith in an exclusive interview with Inside Fort Smith on Friday said that he feels like he was given a virtually impossible task to clean up the mess surrounding the issues at the Fort Smith landfill in general and the controversial recycling issue in particular.

Three sitting city directors seem to have different takes on the way the situation was handled from the outset and whether an attempt was made to cover-up facts surrounding the recycling program and if misleading the public was intentional involving the thousands of dollars seemingly wasted over a 2½-year period.

Mark Schilevert, who was hired on April 18, 2016 to take over for former director T. Baridi Nkokheli says he feels like he was “put in place to be a scapegoat” practically from the outset and questions the transparency of city officials in their public dealings and statements concerning the recycling issue.

“This had been going on since November of 2014 and not once was the issue discussed with me prior to me taking the job,” said Schilevert during a sit-down interview at the offices of his attorney Joey McCutchen.” Once I was aware of the issues I tried to use the ‘open” door policy to schedule a meeting with (city administrator) Carl Geffken, who told me I had to take the issue up with my direct supervisor, Jeff Dingman.”

“My whole reason for trying to secure the meeting with Geffken is that I wanted to discuss what I had imparted to Dingman in the first place,” said Schilevert. “I was flat out denied that opportunity despite the ‘open door policy’ of the city of Fort Smith.”

“Open door” policies are defined by law as a communication policy in which a manager, CEO, managing director, president or supervisor leaves their office door “open” to encourage openness and transparency with the employees of that company or entity.

McCutchen says the entire issue at stake is a lack of transparency by the city on many levels.

“Either Jeff Dingman told Carl Geffken about these issues months ago or he didn’t,” said McCutchen. “Either way … if he didn’t, it’s on him and if he did, then it’s on the city administrator. There has been deceit and deception on some level though out this process.”

“They either intentionally kept it from the public or there is some level of incompetence built into the system,” said McCutchen. “Either way, once the situation was made public, they tried to cover it up.”

McCutchen said pointing fingers at and “summarily firing the only person that was seemingly looking for a solution” doesn’t speak well of communications between department heads and city administration.

“How can these types of request (for a meeting with Geffkin) be denied if there is an ‘open door’ policy?” asked McCutchen. “Sounds to me like it was open until the guy who was being set up to take the blame tried to walk through it.”

One city director seemed to agree, at least partially, with that assessment.

“I am not aware if that’s current protocol or not but deferring a meeting as mentioned does not sound as if it’s an open-door policy,” Position 2 Ward 2 director Andre Good said.

Earlier this month, in a response to an email from Good, Geffken said that the city “did not notify the residents of the changes in recycling since we were working on a solution to the problem”.

Some sitting city directors seem to have a different take on how Fort Smith officials have managed the problems and the negative public relations they have created.

Good, Position 4 Ward 4 director George Catsavis and Position 3 Ward 3 director Mike Lorenz all responded to a set of emailed questions that also went to the other five sitting city directors, mayor Sandy Sanders, deputy city administrator Jeff Dingman and city administrator Carl Gefken.

Catsavis, said the first he learned about the recycling issue was when the story broke in the local press.

“I was never aware of this issue until the press broke the story,” said Catsavis. “After the story broke, several facts surfaced concerning the recycling problems. I did find it disturbing that it was keep quiet for so long.”

Catsavis said the firestorm created in both the media and on social media is both frustrating and understandable.

“We did find out that this went back several years after the story broke along with other issues concerning the recycling problems,” said Catsavis. “We, or at least I, was learning about the issues at the same time as the public.”

“If Mr. Schilevert feels he was wrongly terminated then he has every right to file suit,” added Catsavis, addressing a direct question about the termination.

Good said his first knowledge of problems surrounding the recycling issue came from a memo distributed on October 10, 2014 that was supplied by Stacy Vanourny, Administrative Secretary Sanitation Department and she had received from Nkokheli.

‘Nkokheli made a presentation before the board with two items on the agenda … info regarding expiration of recycling agreement dated 10/10/14 and a review of sanitation landfill disposal rates,” said Good. “The presentation, as I recall it, addressed the need for third party haulers using our landfill to pay adjusted rates. This was met with questions and opposition including private hauler supporters or representatives in the audience.”

Mike Lorenz responded that he didn’t feel it would be appropriate to respond to certain questions in the email because of the possibility of legal action pending in the matter.

The email also went out to McCutchen at the same time as it was sent to city officials in an effort to ensure both sides were being asked for the same information, which seemed to be an issue for Lorenz.

Lorenz, however, did make his thoughts known on many of the discussion points put forth in the email

“I would like to correct an inaccuracy that has been stated many times and is referenced below as well with your statement regarding ‘the issue of tax burden,’” replied Lorenz. “The department of sanitation is wholly funded by rates paid by the users including commercial, residential, or wholesale haulers as well as landfill dumping fees, it is NOT supported by sales tax funding and is a self-supported enterprise fund.”

“I do understand the concern regarding the quoted costs, however the actual extra cost is much less than the numbers that have been floating around as the larger estimates provided by Mr. Schlievert prior to his dismissal was a FEMA estimate of collection cost, not actual cost,” said Lorenz.

“To calculate the actual cost of running the extra trucks one would need to determine how much capacity is in the regular truck routes and how many extra routes would need to be created to collect the additional material regardless of what kind of truck they are in,” Lorenz added. “Additionally, the recyclable trucks are already being used as double duty providing yard waste pick up for mulching so elimination of the recycling truck routes would likely not have been possible during the interim.”

Lorenz said we need to look at the big picture and “facts are there that in Fort Smith and many other cities across the country, a large percentage of recyclable collections have been going into landfills for years due to contamination during the collection process”.

“Single stream recycling is by far the best for the consumer as the curbside separation is minimal but we must do a better job of educating citizens (and likewise each other) in how to properly collect recyclable material to ensure a high percentage makes it to marketable recycle stock,” said Lorenz. “I am not in favor of moving to a multi-stream process but we must ALL do a better job ensuring the quality of what goes into our brown cans each week for any recycling program to be successful”.

Lorenz added “several short-term options and possibly long-term options have been worked out and will be presented next Tuesday evening (June 6) for board discussion and hopefully a decision to move forward with, at the minimum, a short-term solution to restart the recycling program”.

Lorenz declined to comment on four specific questions on disarray in the sanitation department filing system, when he personally was aware of the recycling problem, Fort Smith’s “open door” policy, transparency of the city in the matter and who bears the responsibility for the fiscal burden for the months of double routes being run.

Schilevert said he couldn’t put an accurate number on the cost of running recycling trucks and crews when virtually no recycling was being done, but based on published numbers of the estimated cost to run one recycle truck a year, it is a substantial figure.

“Someone said $600,000 for two trucks,” said Schilevert. “Since half of that would be for yard waste pick-up (which is composted) let’s say $300,000 a year to run the trucks for recycling alone.”

Based on that formula, approximately $750,000 total would be a logical estimated amount spent on keeping up the appearance of a recycling program in Fort Smith since 2014.

The firing of Schilevert, who has a degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Iowa and was the longtime director of solid waste for water and sanitation operations in Berkeley County, South Carolina before coming to Fort Smith, was seemingly unexpected. At least to him.

“I had no disciplinary actions in my files and all my reviews to that point had been fine,” said Schilevert. “I didn’t expect to be fired and certainly not in the manner it was carried out”.

In a March 2016 statement released to the press upon the hiring of Schilevert, Dingman noted: “Mr. Schlievert’s technical background in landfill management really stands out. He demonstrated knowledge and ability in all aspects of solid waste management, and his ability to successfully plan and manage a landfill and provide for its sustainability helped to convince me he was the right individual for the job.”

Sometime between then and the date of his termination, something must have changed.

Schilevert said when he was relieved of his duties he was “treated like a criminal’ and escorted off the property and not even allowed to gather his personal effects. His office area was cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape and city administrator Geffken was “in his face” and violating his personal space.

It took Schilevert two weeks to get his personal belongings back, and even then, they weren’t all returned after that delay.

“I lost a radio and a small table fan,” said Schilevert. “No big deal, but that is just indicative of how I was treated.”

Problems at the landfill, and with the recycling program, “weren’t properly addressed from the outset” and Schilevert says the lack of cooperation the received in trying to address the situation makes him believe he was targeted to be a scapegoat once the issues became public.

Schilevert furnished the memorandum mentioned by Good from former sanitation director Nkokheli dated October 10, 2014 in which Nkokheli advises then city administrator Ray Gosack that the city’s agreement with Corrugated Services could expire in “an effort to identify a more cost effect means to get the material processed.”

Corrugated Services had been accepting recyclables for free from the city but advised at that time they would have to start charging $35 a ton for the cost of processing recyclables.

In a three-page memorandum that Schilevert received from residential collections manager Mitchell Parker, commercial industrial manager Dustin Bradshaw and landfill manager Alan Spangler dated May 5, 2017, Schilevert received “Recycling Timeline Information” stretching back to 1994.

A compactor was installed at the landfill soon after and the city started hauling compacted recyclables in roll off trucks to Greensource in Clarksville but according to the memo, that company was unable to accept the volume of materials the city generated and often they would have to be hauled back to the landfill.

Greensource was never able to accept more that 25% of the recyclables from the outset of that agreement.

At one point, only 1.5 percent to 3 percent of all materials sent to Clarksville were even being accepted.

An attempt was made to “stockpile” materials for recycling later but that was unsuccessful as the materials became “contaminated and deteriorated” and “wet and moldy” to the point it was no longer usable.

McCutchen pointed out that at a recent meeting city directors talked about the “stockpiling” option to alleviate the recycling issue “knowing full well that has been tried unsuccessfully in the past.”

“Just more smoke and mirrors,” said McCutchen. “And an effort to deflect the focus off the real issues.”

On Aug. 3, 2016, the city was completely denied access to the Clarksville yard of Greensource.

At that time, it was discovered that emails from management to administration began in April or May which clearly showed that the city was only recycling a miniscule percentage of what was being collected by the recycling trucks.

“Sanitation administration was aware of the limitations we were experiencing at Greensource beginning in 2014 and running through 2016,” the memo states.

Well documented problems inside the sanitation department and at the landfill, some of them having nothing to do with the recycling issue and going back a several years.

The May 5 memo references “word of mouth” allegations as to why T. Baridi Nkokheli was fired, who was relieved of his duties in part because of discrepancies on credit card and travel expense reports he submitted to the city for reimbursement.

Nkolkheli later repaid the city of Fort Smith $1,500 to settle the matter.

“There were allegations of other serious issues at the facility at this time. It is believed there were allegations of sexual misconduct among the staff. Funds were allegedly being concealed from the city of Fort Smith for the actual value of the material that was being sorted.

It should be noted that this information is all second hand and “word of mouth” from previous employees of the City of Fort Smith and cannot be relied on as 100% accurate” the memo states.

Schilevert said in a May 2016 meeting between department of sanitation staff and Charles Stringer and Susan Speak of the AEDQ that the city learned forms used for reporting recycling credits were being filled out wrong and that Stringer and Speak arrived for an inspection on September 1 of that year to “ensure we were reporting this information correctly.”

That issue was settled with ADEQ before Schilevert was terminated.

Schilevert also said that when he started to look for files pertaining to all the information and contracts relating to recycling that he found the bulk of them “in a leaky storage shed, spread out and dumped in disarray, spoiled by rainwater that had leaked through the roof and covered in raccoon feces.”

Given what he knows now, Schilevert says that at least some portion of the recyclables started being co-mingled with the other refuse as early as 2014.

“I tried to express my concerns,” said Schilevert, addressing the ‘open door’ policy again. “I guess that all stopped at Dingman and Geffken.”

Catsavis added that all department heads answer to the city administrator and deputy city administrator answers to the board.

“No one is going to tell me who I can talk to if I want to talk to a department head or a city employee, then I will, and if someone doesn’t like it … too bad,” said Catsavis. “I promise you this … if something like this happens again and we’re (city directors) made to look like we’re incompetent again then I will be ready to start firing people from the top down.”

Schilevert says when he was hired he immediately had concerns over the lack of training for some sanitation employees and that communication between him and the city was lacking.

In addition, Schilevert says the city policy of just giving everyone a recyclable cart when only a certain percentage of residents participate in the program is a boondoggle and another waste of city funds.

He says a more effective way to approach the system would be to identify who actually recycles and make carts available to just those individuals.

“We really had no method to identify who was and who wasn’t recycling,” said Schilevert. “With 27,000 households in Fort Smith you would have thought the prudent thing would have been to buy those fancy, wheeled carts just for the people that planned to use them.”

Schilevert says that city needs to immediately organize a sanitation board consisting of landfill employees, residents, business owners and board of director’s members to start addressing recycling issues.

“That’s pretty much the way it’s done everywhere else,” said Schilevert. “Instead of a handful of city officials trying to run the sanitation business.”

Lorenz concurs that the issues that resulted in the current situation stems in part from some held over problems caused by previous employees and feels much of the blame can be assigned to that factor.

“I assure you there was no intentional cover up that I was aware of and I truly do not believe that any deceit was ever anyone’s intent,” said Lorenz. “Unfortunately, there are likely numerous people that could be blamed for the initial creation of this mess and that touched it in some way as it proceeded … many of which are no longer employed by the city.”

Good said that regardless of what had happened in the past, he feels like the recycling issues fell within the parameters of Schilevert’s job duties and he should have taken action.

“While I understand the theory of the problem existing prior to Mark’s arrival, he should have taken immediate action to stop the waste of funds and resources until he found a correction for the issue,” said Good. “Neither he, nor Geffken, Dingman or Bradshaw notified the board.”

Good says he can understand the distrust by citizens of their city leadership, but that calling for Geffken’s termination (which has been openly discussed on social media) “is not the manner in which the board should move nor is it the way business operates.”

“Employees have supervisors and/or managers who have department heads who have Geffken and Dingman as administration. Just as the board does not have the direct role of day to day operations of every department, neither does Mr. Geffken,” said Good. “Yes, ultimately the responsibility lies with him but responsibility also falls upon those with management and supervisory roles.”

“More than one director has made their objection to the mishandling of this recycling issue,” said Good. “I am not happy with how any of this was handled, from the direction of the responsible party who called for ceasing recycling to the continuance of running those sanitation routes as if it was business as usual, to the lack of communication to the board and citizens of the issue.”

“Again, as I stated publicly at the board study session, I am not in favor of making a hasty decision to address the recycling issue,” said Good. “We need to find the best plan of action after real questions are answered. If recycling is what we as a city want to do we can’t do it without a plan that addresses our issues now but in the future.”

Catsavis added that he, in part, agrees with Schilevert and McCutchen’s assessment of the situation. And disagrees with Lorenz on the issue of accountability.

“There was no transparency here… no accountability. In my opinion, it was a cover up,” said Catsavis. “The people have the right to know exactly what is going on with their city government (and) this has gone on too long.”