The Politics of Garbage: A backlog of leaves bumps into complex past
A sanitation worker tosses an old, water-logged suitcase into a garbage truck while making the rounds in the Evergreen neighborhood of Midtown Jan. 31, 2020. Some sanitation workers are upset over compulsory overtime to clear a backlog of leaf pickups. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian)
The city's response to a backlog in picking up leaves reveals just how politically volatile the city's most basic service can be -- and has been -- for decades.
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Jim Strickland AFSCME Maurice Spivey Solid Waste Division 1968 Sanitation StrikeBill Dries on demand
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
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