Shoreview
Public Works Director Mark Maloney speaks
Longtime Public Works Director Mark Maloney discredits claims that solid waste trucks damage roads in an email to city staff dated February 14, 2023.
Read the email in its entirety here.
Find Shoreview Surveys here.
Find Shoreview Commission report here.
Find Shoreview Editorials here.
March 2024 Update
At the city council meeting of March 18, 2024, the council voted 4-0 (Councilmember Doan, the lead proponent, was absent) to discontinue discussing government managed trash collection.
Garbage Haulers for Citizen Choice has the only online source of this 30-minute meeting because the city council refuses to post this on their website. Watch the meeting on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/yg1_e0a2KvI
The meeting minutes, which are only a very simple summary of the discussion, are available here.
Note at the beginning of the meeting video, New Brighton resident and city employee Brad Martens tells residents in attendance that they are not allowed to speak at this meeting. He then falsely claims that council members can only speak with each other at these meetings, which is why public comment is not allowed.
Martens clearly has not read the League of Minnesota Cities legal brief on the Open Meeting Law. On page 20, begins the review of how council members can speak to each other outside of a public meeting. Basically, communication is allowed as long as it would be limited to 2 of 5 members, and that council members are not meeting in serial consecutive order or are having communications designed to defeat the Open Meeting Law. The League's briefing sheet can be found here.
It is obvious from city council member comments, how they all spoke in unison on various points, that council members have been talking about government managed trash collection outside of city council meetings. As previously stated, that is allowable as long as council members are not trying to defeat the Open Meeting Law.
Speakers in the video can be identified as follows:
In summary, city council members claimed that their scientific surveys, unscientific surveys, and emails, all showed a nearly 50/50 split in opinion. Also that opinions were highly polarized and did not follow political party lines. (Springhorn gets the credit for leading this analysis.)
Council members noted that it would take a significant amount of staff time to actually compile an accurate analysis of contracts between open market and contract cities. Furthermore, even more time would be required to determine the amount of city resources that would be required to run a government managed solid waste system, both in employee time and taxpayer subsidies.
Overview
The City of Shoreview’s move towards government managed trash collection has been in the works since approximately 2020. It has been quietly driven in the background by three key players, new Councilmember John Doan, New Brighton resident and City Administrator Brad Martens, and Brooklyn Park Recycling Manager Tim Pratt, a Shoreview resident who seemingly has a lifetime appointment as chair of the city’s environment commission.
Working under Pratt, are fellow Shoreview environment commission members Susan Rengstorf, Jennifer Olson, and Kathy Radosevich. Other supporters are Paul Gardner and Susan Young, both having been on the payroll for various environmental consulting firms, government entities, or groups.
Shoreview’s environment commission is taxpayer funded and uses taxpayer paid staff, yet is allowed by the city to operate outside of Minnesota’s Open Meeting Law. The commission meets at city hall in off camera, unrecorded, and untelevised meetings. Rengstorf, Olson, Radosevich, and others operate as a subcommittee that meets outside of city hall at undisclosed meeting times and locations.
Garbage Haulers for Citizen Choice (GHCC) tracks what is actually happening at city hall by continued appearances at meetings, filing public data requests, and having conversations with concerned residents in the community.
City Council
As the driver of government managed trash collection at the city council level, Councilmember Doan essentially strong armed other councilmembers into adding this to the city’s strategic plan at the council meeting of March 20, 2023 (A meeting not broadcasted). He said that it needed to be labeled a “strategic goal” so it shows the council is in touch with the community. (Or risk being politically attacked as out of touch at the next election?) Councilmember Emy Johnson challenged this label, stating that this narrow of an issue is not appropriate for a high level strategic plan. Doan insisted, and Mayor Sue Denkinger backed down, so it was added to the plan for the time being.
Staff
At the staff level, City Administrator Martens denies being a key driver of government managed trash collection, yet actions indicate otherwise. Paul Gardner, in an email dated January 1, 2023, said Martens called Shoreview residents “obsessed” because they want to pick their own hauler. Martens also stands by while doing nothing about the environment commission operating outside of Minnesota’s Open Meeting Law. Furthermore, Martens authored the error filled June 20, 2023 city council report on citizen survey results.
In June 2023, without any supporting documentation, Martens told haulers that Shoreview’s contracted law firm does not charge to guide a city through the complicated government managed trash collection process. GHCC’s extensive experience shows city costs ranging from $50,000 to $1.5 million in the case of Bloomington.
As city administrator, Martens is ultimately responsible for assuring all council materials are accurate and reflect a professional work product. He is also responsible for the appropriate use and allocation of staff resources.
Citizen Surveys
In a June 20, 2023 report to the city council, City Administrator Martens failed to disclose that the change in city survey results on trash collection actually coincided with the city moving from professional scientific telephone surveys (2010, 2013, and 2018) to a cheap amateur mail-in survey (2022). He also failed to note that not only had the survey methods changed, the actual questions asked about trash collection also changed.
Read more on the city’s survey problems here.
City Activist Commission
At the city commission level, Tim Pratt, along with his friends Paul Gardner and Susan Young, along with a subcommittee made up of Susan Rengstorf, Jennifer Olson, and Kathy Radosevich, have been running a false information campaign about government managed trash collection since approximately 2020. They started by going public with a factually inaccurate and misleading report to the city council, and then recruited public speakers with political agendas to speak on the subject, followed by newspaper editorials reiterating false and misleading statements.
In a report to the city council on February 21, 2023, this group magically proclaimed that city residents are paying too much for trash collection, that companies operate inefficiently, the environment would be saved, and the 2022 citizen survey supported taking away your right to choose your own hauler.
Not surprisingly, this report demonstrated little to no understanding of pricing, fuel usage, and other operational issues of solid waste companies. It pretended that state and county taxes, and more importantly the property tax subsidies found in government managed trash collection operations, did not exist. It completely ignored city staff’s rejection of road maintenance savings, and the necessity of reallocating and hiring new staff to manage a new government program.
One may ask, how many times did any of these Shoreview commission members meet with those who are actually in the solid waste collection business to discuss these issues? The answer is zero, never.
Read more about the commission’s misleading report here.
Shoreview Has Bigger Problems
On February 20, 2024, the city council spent almost two hours discussing a myriad of problems facing the city, and solid waste collection was not mentioned even once. Of course this meeting was not televised to the public, but GHCC was present taking notes.
First, the city council wants to build two $2,000,000 park shelter buildings for only two city parks that serve small portions of the city, and they have no idea what the ongoing maintenance costs will be or how it will be paid for. They are also having problems figuring out how to break the news of this massive expenditure to the public without political fallout. As Councilmember Doan said, we are essentially paying $2 million for bathrooms. Councilmember Johnson asked, what does building this at these costs signal to our residents, spending $4 million in just two areas of the city?
City Administrator Martens said that the 5 year budget outlook is challenging. The city needs to find non-tax revenue, and there isn’t enough employee time to find this revenue. Martens talked about hiring a consultant to do this at an unknown cost to taxpayers.
Martens then continues about the problems the city has been having with employee retention, due to low pay and a lack of employment flexibility, such as work at home options. He said the city always loses their top candidate in hiring searches, and are currently down three employees.
Councilmember Johnson then raises concerns about burning out the existing staff, to which Martens responds that 20% of the city’s full-time employees quit last year.
Councilmember Doan then expresses interest in wanting a city sales tax, which actually will raise solid waste hauling bills, the opposite of what he has previously advocated for.
As previously stated, there was no discussion of where the city is going to find employees and the money to operate a government managed trash collection system. There are no “free” options available, as made clear by Richfield’s government managed trash coordinator to a Mounds View committee in 2024.
In Richfield’s city government managed trash collection program, an employee costing taxpayers $150,000/yr spends half of their time managing a system where haulers own containers, haulers address customer service, and haulers do billing, etc.
Tail Wagging the Dog
The most astonishing part of Shoreview’s efforts to institute government management trash collection is how this so accurately fits that 1800’s saying, “The Tail Wagging the Dog.” The “tail” is this tiny but loud group of ideologically hyper-driven activists who are demanding government managed trash collection and the “dog” is the city council and city administrator.
These ideologically hyper-driven activists are demanding government managed trash collection at all costs. Facts or priorities simply do not matter. Outrageous claims that simply defy common sense are acceptable as long as it furthers their goals. Claiming that traffic accidents will be reduced makes for a good sound bite, even though there are no accidents in the first place. Even resorting to the use of political dog whistle phrases like “getting ripped off” or “taken advantage of”, without evidence, is acceptable to this group. No attempts are made to gather alternative views or any factual information that does not support their ideological beliefs.
Why have these ideologically hyper-driven activists suddenly been allowed to consume thousands of dollars of city staff time in a city the size of Shoreview by “wagging” the city council and city administrator on government managed trash collection? The answer is the retirement of Mayor Sandy Martin, City Manager Terry Schwerm, and Public Works director Mark Maloney, who together had over 75 years of combined service to residents of Shoreview. These three would have never allowed themselves to be embarrassingly “wagged” by any group of ideologically hyper-driven activists.
Paul Gardner, in an email to Jennifer Olson dated October 30, 2021, notes that Schwerm is retiring and Martin is 79 years old and will likely not run for reelection. Gardner stated, “New people means a new opportunity.”
It was no secret that Schwerm dismissed government managed trash collection outright, stating jokingly in an email to Maloney dated February 4, 2021, “Maybe we need to limit Amazon delivery trucks as well as they are probably heavier than your average passenger vehicle. And mail trucks when the Sears catalog comes out.”
In that same February 4, 2021 email, Maloney made it clear that he would not support the road wear and tear claims promoted by these ideologically hyper-driven activists because they simply were not true. Gardner’s statement about new people means new opportunities, also applies to his retirement.
When there is a leadership vacuum in any city council or city administration, ideologically hyper-driven activists will descend like vultures. These activists are single issue driven and have no concern about the overall betterment of the people or the priorities of the city as a whole.
Positive Alternatives
In Coon Rapids we have the opposite scenario. In this professionally run city 2.5 times the size of Shoreview, there is no mistaking that the “dog” wags the “tail”.
After hearing from citizen activists, council and staff met with haulers on several occasions in 2023 to discuss the issue. Discussions were highly productive. On February 26, 2024, the council unanimously chose to end all talk of government trash collection. Instead, staff was directed to work with haulers to improve customer service through goal setting, complaint tracking, and licensing. Significant taxpayer dollars were saved, improvements will promptly take effect, and residents will keep their right to choose their own hauler.
This path is open to the Shoreview city council and staff at any time, without passing any resolutions or taking any adversarial legal actions. Simply send haulers an email seeking proposed dates and times to meet. Haulers would be more than happy to attend multiple meetings to discuss issues of concern to the city and provide factual information for their consideration.
Updated 3/22/24
Public Works Director Mark Maloney speaks
Longtime Public Works Director Mark Maloney discredits claims that solid waste trucks damage roads in an email to city staff dated February 14, 2023.
Read the email in its entirety here.
Find Shoreview Surveys here.
Find Shoreview Commission report here.
Find Shoreview Editorials here.
March 2024 Update
At the city council meeting of March 18, 2024, the council voted 4-0 (Councilmember Doan, the lead proponent, was absent) to discontinue discussing government managed trash collection.
Garbage Haulers for Citizen Choice has the only online source of this 30-minute meeting because the city council refuses to post this on their website. Watch the meeting on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/yg1_e0a2KvI
The meeting minutes, which are only a very simple summary of the discussion, are available here.
Note at the beginning of the meeting video, New Brighton resident and city employee Brad Martens tells residents in attendance that they are not allowed to speak at this meeting. He then falsely claims that council members can only speak with each other at these meetings, which is why public comment is not allowed.
Martens clearly has not read the League of Minnesota Cities legal brief on the Open Meeting Law. On page 20, begins the review of how council members can speak to each other outside of a public meeting. Basically, communication is allowed as long as it would be limited to 2 of 5 members, and that council members are not meeting in serial consecutive order or are having communications designed to defeat the Open Meeting Law. The League's briefing sheet can be found here.
It is obvious from city council member comments, how they all spoke in unison on various points, that council members have been talking about government managed trash collection outside of city council meetings. As previously stated, that is allowable as long as council members are not trying to defeat the Open Meeting Law.
Speakers in the video can be identified as follows:
- Mayor Sue Denkinger is wearing black
- Councilmember Emy Johnson, red blouse, tan coat
- Councilmember Shelly Myrland, grey coat, side view to camera
- Councilmember Cory Springhorn, blue short, back to camera
- Public Works Director, maroon shirt
- New Brighton resident and city employee Brad Martens is wearing a grey sport coat and plaid tie
In summary, city council members claimed that their scientific surveys, unscientific surveys, and emails, all showed a nearly 50/50 split in opinion. Also that opinions were highly polarized and did not follow political party lines. (Springhorn gets the credit for leading this analysis.)
Council members noted that it would take a significant amount of staff time to actually compile an accurate analysis of contracts between open market and contract cities. Furthermore, even more time would be required to determine the amount of city resources that would be required to run a government managed solid waste system, both in employee time and taxpayer subsidies.
Overview
The City of Shoreview’s move towards government managed trash collection has been in the works since approximately 2020. It has been quietly driven in the background by three key players, new Councilmember John Doan, New Brighton resident and City Administrator Brad Martens, and Brooklyn Park Recycling Manager Tim Pratt, a Shoreview resident who seemingly has a lifetime appointment as chair of the city’s environment commission.
Working under Pratt, are fellow Shoreview environment commission members Susan Rengstorf, Jennifer Olson, and Kathy Radosevich. Other supporters are Paul Gardner and Susan Young, both having been on the payroll for various environmental consulting firms, government entities, or groups.
Shoreview’s environment commission is taxpayer funded and uses taxpayer paid staff, yet is allowed by the city to operate outside of Minnesota’s Open Meeting Law. The commission meets at city hall in off camera, unrecorded, and untelevised meetings. Rengstorf, Olson, Radosevich, and others operate as a subcommittee that meets outside of city hall at undisclosed meeting times and locations.
Garbage Haulers for Citizen Choice (GHCC) tracks what is actually happening at city hall by continued appearances at meetings, filing public data requests, and having conversations with concerned residents in the community.
City Council
As the driver of government managed trash collection at the city council level, Councilmember Doan essentially strong armed other councilmembers into adding this to the city’s strategic plan at the council meeting of March 20, 2023 (A meeting not broadcasted). He said that it needed to be labeled a “strategic goal” so it shows the council is in touch with the community. (Or risk being politically attacked as out of touch at the next election?) Councilmember Emy Johnson challenged this label, stating that this narrow of an issue is not appropriate for a high level strategic plan. Doan insisted, and Mayor Sue Denkinger backed down, so it was added to the plan for the time being.
Staff
At the staff level, City Administrator Martens denies being a key driver of government managed trash collection, yet actions indicate otherwise. Paul Gardner, in an email dated January 1, 2023, said Martens called Shoreview residents “obsessed” because they want to pick their own hauler. Martens also stands by while doing nothing about the environment commission operating outside of Minnesota’s Open Meeting Law. Furthermore, Martens authored the error filled June 20, 2023 city council report on citizen survey results.
In June 2023, without any supporting documentation, Martens told haulers that Shoreview’s contracted law firm does not charge to guide a city through the complicated government managed trash collection process. GHCC’s extensive experience shows city costs ranging from $50,000 to $1.5 million in the case of Bloomington.
As city administrator, Martens is ultimately responsible for assuring all council materials are accurate and reflect a professional work product. He is also responsible for the appropriate use and allocation of staff resources.
Citizen Surveys
In a June 20, 2023 report to the city council, City Administrator Martens failed to disclose that the change in city survey results on trash collection actually coincided with the city moving from professional scientific telephone surveys (2010, 2013, and 2018) to a cheap amateur mail-in survey (2022). He also failed to note that not only had the survey methods changed, the actual questions asked about trash collection also changed.
Read more on the city’s survey problems here.
City Activist Commission
At the city commission level, Tim Pratt, along with his friends Paul Gardner and Susan Young, along with a subcommittee made up of Susan Rengstorf, Jennifer Olson, and Kathy Radosevich, have been running a false information campaign about government managed trash collection since approximately 2020. They started by going public with a factually inaccurate and misleading report to the city council, and then recruited public speakers with political agendas to speak on the subject, followed by newspaper editorials reiterating false and misleading statements.
In a report to the city council on February 21, 2023, this group magically proclaimed that city residents are paying too much for trash collection, that companies operate inefficiently, the environment would be saved, and the 2022 citizen survey supported taking away your right to choose your own hauler.
Not surprisingly, this report demonstrated little to no understanding of pricing, fuel usage, and other operational issues of solid waste companies. It pretended that state and county taxes, and more importantly the property tax subsidies found in government managed trash collection operations, did not exist. It completely ignored city staff’s rejection of road maintenance savings, and the necessity of reallocating and hiring new staff to manage a new government program.
One may ask, how many times did any of these Shoreview commission members meet with those who are actually in the solid waste collection business to discuss these issues? The answer is zero, never.
Read more about the commission’s misleading report here.
Shoreview Has Bigger Problems
On February 20, 2024, the city council spent almost two hours discussing a myriad of problems facing the city, and solid waste collection was not mentioned even once. Of course this meeting was not televised to the public, but GHCC was present taking notes.
First, the city council wants to build two $2,000,000 park shelter buildings for only two city parks that serve small portions of the city, and they have no idea what the ongoing maintenance costs will be or how it will be paid for. They are also having problems figuring out how to break the news of this massive expenditure to the public without political fallout. As Councilmember Doan said, we are essentially paying $2 million for bathrooms. Councilmember Johnson asked, what does building this at these costs signal to our residents, spending $4 million in just two areas of the city?
City Administrator Martens said that the 5 year budget outlook is challenging. The city needs to find non-tax revenue, and there isn’t enough employee time to find this revenue. Martens talked about hiring a consultant to do this at an unknown cost to taxpayers.
Martens then continues about the problems the city has been having with employee retention, due to low pay and a lack of employment flexibility, such as work at home options. He said the city always loses their top candidate in hiring searches, and are currently down three employees.
Councilmember Johnson then raises concerns about burning out the existing staff, to which Martens responds that 20% of the city’s full-time employees quit last year.
Councilmember Doan then expresses interest in wanting a city sales tax, which actually will raise solid waste hauling bills, the opposite of what he has previously advocated for.
As previously stated, there was no discussion of where the city is going to find employees and the money to operate a government managed trash collection system. There are no “free” options available, as made clear by Richfield’s government managed trash coordinator to a Mounds View committee in 2024.
In Richfield’s city government managed trash collection program, an employee costing taxpayers $150,000/yr spends half of their time managing a system where haulers own containers, haulers address customer service, and haulers do billing, etc.
Tail Wagging the Dog
The most astonishing part of Shoreview’s efforts to institute government management trash collection is how this so accurately fits that 1800’s saying, “The Tail Wagging the Dog.” The “tail” is this tiny but loud group of ideologically hyper-driven activists who are demanding government managed trash collection and the “dog” is the city council and city administrator.
These ideologically hyper-driven activists are demanding government managed trash collection at all costs. Facts or priorities simply do not matter. Outrageous claims that simply defy common sense are acceptable as long as it furthers their goals. Claiming that traffic accidents will be reduced makes for a good sound bite, even though there are no accidents in the first place. Even resorting to the use of political dog whistle phrases like “getting ripped off” or “taken advantage of”, without evidence, is acceptable to this group. No attempts are made to gather alternative views or any factual information that does not support their ideological beliefs.
Why have these ideologically hyper-driven activists suddenly been allowed to consume thousands of dollars of city staff time in a city the size of Shoreview by “wagging” the city council and city administrator on government managed trash collection? The answer is the retirement of Mayor Sandy Martin, City Manager Terry Schwerm, and Public Works director Mark Maloney, who together had over 75 years of combined service to residents of Shoreview. These three would have never allowed themselves to be embarrassingly “wagged” by any group of ideologically hyper-driven activists.
Paul Gardner, in an email to Jennifer Olson dated October 30, 2021, notes that Schwerm is retiring and Martin is 79 years old and will likely not run for reelection. Gardner stated, “New people means a new opportunity.”
It was no secret that Schwerm dismissed government managed trash collection outright, stating jokingly in an email to Maloney dated February 4, 2021, “Maybe we need to limit Amazon delivery trucks as well as they are probably heavier than your average passenger vehicle. And mail trucks when the Sears catalog comes out.”
In that same February 4, 2021 email, Maloney made it clear that he would not support the road wear and tear claims promoted by these ideologically hyper-driven activists because they simply were not true. Gardner’s statement about new people means new opportunities, also applies to his retirement.
When there is a leadership vacuum in any city council or city administration, ideologically hyper-driven activists will descend like vultures. These activists are single issue driven and have no concern about the overall betterment of the people or the priorities of the city as a whole.
Positive Alternatives
In Coon Rapids we have the opposite scenario. In this professionally run city 2.5 times the size of Shoreview, there is no mistaking that the “dog” wags the “tail”.
After hearing from citizen activists, council and staff met with haulers on several occasions in 2023 to discuss the issue. Discussions were highly productive. On February 26, 2024, the council unanimously chose to end all talk of government trash collection. Instead, staff was directed to work with haulers to improve customer service through goal setting, complaint tracking, and licensing. Significant taxpayer dollars were saved, improvements will promptly take effect, and residents will keep their right to choose their own hauler.
This path is open to the Shoreview city council and staff at any time, without passing any resolutions or taking any adversarial legal actions. Simply send haulers an email seeking proposed dates and times to meet. Haulers would be more than happy to attend multiple meetings to discuss issues of concern to the city and provide factual information for their consideration.
Updated 3/22/24