Employee Appreciation - Solid Waste Division    Not all City of Sarasota employees will have Memorial Day off.  The men and women in our Sarasota Police Department will continue to ensure the community is safe.  Team members with the water and wastewater divisions will monitor our critical infrastructure systems.  And, crews in the Solid Waste Division will collect trash as usual.

Earlier this week, Deputy City Manager Marlon Brown and I sat down with the Solid Waste Division for lunch to share City updates with the crew and learn more about their daily work.  We remain very impressed and grateful for this dedicated, hard working team.

Each collection day, they pick up trash from over 16,400 residential and commercial locations along all 650 named streets in the city.  All total it's an average of 188 tons of trash each day.

The 13 drivers are allowed to go home when they complete their assigned route.  But, this team never leaves until the last driver returns to the Public Works Department on 12th Street.  Sometimes, drivers who are done with their route voluntarily will head back out on street to help their co-workers finish.  That's teamwork!

There are many internal and external issues to juggle -- and, getting input from staff members about their jobs is important.  It's especially nice to be able to break bread and learn about each other.  Thanks, Solid Waste Division, for hosting us and for your continued hard work!