Smells Funny

Never let it be said that Buzz misses a chance to brag about, well, Buzz and assortedDallas Observer co-workers. And we need only the flimsiest premise to do so.

For example, you may have seen the recent spate of stories informing you that Laura Miller, Dallas mayor and former colleague here at Buzz headquarters, recently announced a plan to scrap the city's $17 million curbside recycling program and put the money into more sensible things like keeping swimming pools open and cleaning up the condoms in city parks. (Or something like that. Buzz has been known to paraphrase.)

Her idea made sense to the Dallas City Council, and it makes good sense to us, too. 'Cuz on May 16, we printed a cover story ("Garbage In, Garbage Out") that pretty much told you that the whole program is a huge waste of taxpayer dollars. The in-depth investigation (Buzz loves in-depth investigations...gives us happy feet) said that though all the city's utility customers pay a monthly fee for recycling, few use the service. We also noted that Community Waste Disposal, the recycling company that landed the sweetheart five-year recycling contract, operated with virtually no city oversight. In fact, we saw the company's records before the city ever bothered asking to see them.

There were other problems we detailed, including the apparent fudging of records to inflate how many tons of recycling product was collected. We also noted that the city had absolutely no idea what the company actually picked up, sold to recyclers or trucked to another landfill outside Dallas.

Other media, of course, did their best to ignore the story. That's what they do well, after all. But the mayor, bless her heart, knows that at least one outta 10 things we write is true, and that's more than most daily papers can say.

"I think that if you spend $2 million, you ought to get more than 4 percent of your trash recycled for that kind of money," Miller says. "We have an inefficient recycling program that unfortunately hasn't been very successful in terms of the amount of tonnage that we are recycling."

Now, her take makes sense, given our story. But if you're, oh, say, The Dallas Morning News, and you pretended that our story never existed, and then the mayor comes along and says we need to kill the recycling plan, wouldn't you say to yourself, "Holy crap! Something is wrong with the recycling program. Someone, quick, do a story on it!"

You'd think. Except that they know what you know: Someone already did.