Human Conditioning, Trash Collection, and the Town of Jarratt's Government

Summary: Op-Ed piece; Warning signs that the Town Council is manipulating the citizens into giving them proof that one (1) trash day per week is sufficient by having citizens merely taking their trash to the dumpster rather than wait a full seven (7) days for the trash to be collected each week, thus relinquishing the Town from the necessity of a two (2) day per week trash pickup regimen altogether.

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There's a little thing called "human conditioning."  The Merriam-Webster's online dictionary describes conditioning as (2) "a simple form of learning involving the formation, strengthening, or weakening of an association between a stimulus and a response."  To devolve it further, we can also review the Pavlov's Dog scenario wherein it was believed (and proven) that one item paired with another item can trigger a similar response with just the first item alone with time (a bell with food toward a dog later renders a dog expecting food at the sound of the bell).  This is known as "classical conditioning."  

When you place the two together, you will be able to see exactly what certain persons on the town council of Jarratt, Virginia, are currently doing - and have been doing for some time - to their residents as far as the removal of one of the two days of trash pickup is concerned.

Under the "classical conditioning" phase, you expect trash to be picked up twice a week - it has always been a given, and a very automatic, twice a week ritual service in return for your tax payment.  It has been expected, warranted, and guaranteed.

This is also true for the persons on the outskirts of town participating in the extended trash pickup program, and they were the first persons in the current council's attempt at conditioning - namely by allowing them in (not in any way intended to be used as guinea pigs), then altering the payment schedule (weeding out those who can pay monthly, but not quarterly; then by weeding out those who could pay quarterly, but not biannually).

In 2024, though there are no minutes online to secure this as pure fact in a PDF format [See Virginia Code 2.2-3707.2 wherein the Town of Jarratt, VA, is currently going against Code by not having minutes posted since January 2024], members of Council were actually looking at doing away with in-house trash pickup methods and turning toward contracting the trash pickup service to a collection service - much the same as Stony Creek, VA, did in 2020 [PDF: March 2020 Jarratt Town Council Meeting minutes, page 2, "Stony Creek Garbage"].

Collection services generally ONLY pick up trash once a week.

Things apparently fizzled out.

Fast forward to 2025 and members of Council - as well as the now Mayor, who was previously a member of Council - are starting to talk about contracting the trash pickup again [March 2025].  They cannot balance the Town's finances, and believe that cutting back on trash pickup will solve their problems.

Members of Council believe, due to human conditioning, people will just shrug and find other ways of disposing of their trash if the amount far exceeds what their trash cans can hold.

Council will then use that to their advantage and declare that, YES, the citizens of the Town of Jarratt, VA, can live with trash being picked up just one (1) day a week - all because human conditioning will merely find an alternate route for trash disposal.

This is NOT acceptable.

This is a form of fascist authoritarianism - it is NOT a form of democracy, regardless of the fact that these people were elected into power - and it is most certainly not in favor of individualistic ways of life, liberty, and the pursuit of personal happiness.

Seriously, how many people want to say "HUZZAH!  Because the Town Council decided we aren't worth their time, let us go forth to the manned dumpsters on the outskirts of town that are enclosed by fencing and only open between the hours of A and Z on very specific days that I may or may not be able to get to due to the fact that I work and/or do not have the ability to drive there myself!"

Beyond the Sussex County dumpster site (between 2 and 3 miles away east, open every day except Wednesday, but really odd hours - the Sussex County website has been altered and links are no longer functional, so I had to use the Wayback Machine to find their hours of operation) and the Greensville County dumpster site (between 2 and 3 miles away south, open on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday [Site #10]) on the outskirts of town, the next closest dumpsters are on the outskirts of Emporia (~9 miles [Site #7]), Purdy (~9 miles [Site #11], or Stony Creek (~9 miles).

I propose that the citizens of the Town of Jarratt, VA, merely hold on to their trash for the Wednesday trash pickup (yes, I am well aware that it is a full seven (7) days of trash storage) and make the employees see exactly how much they hate Council for doing this to them - a lot of extra work on a single day instead of the same amount of work they are used to doing spread across two separate days - especially since they thought these people who hired them for these jobs were their friends...

...and their so-called friends are in the process of trying to figure out underhanded ways to tell them they are no longer needed.  Less work?  Fewer hours.  Fewer hours?  They might leave on their own and will not file for unemployment.

Everything these employees currently do can be contracted out at cost, and the Town will then not be paying extra for health insurance, retirement, fuel, vehicle insurance, vehicle maintenance, and so on on top of said cost.  From the outside looking in, the Jarratt Town Council is ONLY looking at the easiest ways to cut cost without actually letting go of power - and their own paychecks - regardless of the fact that they are slitting their own throats in the process.

But who needs friends when you hold all of the power, the money, and the influence - am I right?

- Ruby Stetson;
For the People.

Trash Pickup part Three - Out-Of-Town

Nearly forgetting the fact that the Town of Jarratt, Virginia, also has trash pickup for persons on the outskirts of town, we were reminded of such while we were going through old minutes and ordinances.

(We are doing our best to get a copy of every single article from the official town website before someone decides to rip everything from it - or get rid of the website entirely.  There have already been two places on the website that they have altered without thought or reason beyond vanity - the first, an RFP from 2018 - the second, a list of persons on planning and zoning, which is currently nonexistent.  The current mayor, and a current member of council, are still listed as though they were still citizens.)

At any rate, unless something has changed and it has not been posted online....

There is a form [PDF - if they have taken it off the website, you can also find it here] that states "extended trash pick up" is to be paid quarterly, and lists which roads are capable of being on said pickup route.

The form has not been updated.  If you were merely glancing, and you just so happened to live on a certain road, you would automatically believe this form is exactly what you're looking for - but it isn't.

Because we skim through what we have been saving off of the official town website, even though it was discussed on March 8, 2022, to offer the service to persons on Wyatt's Mill Road [PDF] and, in February 2023 [PDF], roughly a year after deciding to offer the service, they decided extended trash pickup was going to be offered, but everyone had to pay for it in six (6) month segments rather than three (3) -- a month later [PDF] the Town no longer picked up trash on Wyatt's Mill Road.

Reviewing old minutes does not always give a full scope of reasons.  Some of it may have truly been because of the price of diesel (it was over $4 a gallon in 2023, so we can understand the frustrations) - some of it may have been the distance between the town office and the locations involved with diesel prices included.  It may have also been the decision by council to force persons on extended trash pickup to pay for six (6) months of service in advance rather than three (3).

Let's look at that, though - while residents pay for such through taxes, averaging $5 for trash pickup twice a week (we discussed the average price here), apparently extended trash pickup for out-of-town houses is cheaper.  By the contract form, the price for trash pickup twice a week was just $4, though paid for in a lump sum of three (3) months originally ($52 quarterly), then changed to payments made every six (6) months ($84 biannually).  Regardless, it's just $208 a year, in a warped reflection of the average of $259 in taxes paid per household within the town limits.

Regardless?  With the Town of Jarratt, Virginia, having officially declared a once per week trash collection change on their website (April 23, 2025 - and here's a screenshot, just in case they decide to delete it ...like they do with everything else), even the extended trash pickup participants have been shafted with a 100% markup on their bill.

When you look back at both the larger, and smaller, towns that provide the service twice a week (one of which also provides recycling once a week) ...and then you look at the Town of Jarratt, Virginia... where has the town gone wrong? What have the citizens, both in town and just outside of it, done wrong to be slapped in the face like this?

Pulling something from the Town Council Meeting [PDF, pages 1 and 2] held on January 9, 2022, one (1) Pauline Adams (a resident) is reported stating something that might tug appropriately at this juncture:

[She] stated she doesn’t see what [the citizens] are getting for their tax dollars other than streetlights and trash pickup and not everyone has a streetlight. She recommended the idea of converting back to the counties, she understands what it entails but the town doesn’t provide any “necessities” that the county doesn’t already provide [them].

 Well said, Mrs. Adams.  Well said.

- Jarratt, VA, USA:
For the People.

 

Jarratt, VA, Trash Pickup - Recap, Taxes

Summary: The Jarratt town government is still intent on placing a 100% markup on weekly trash pickup by taking the service down from two (2) times a week to only one (1) time a week.  This article peels back the averages per house worth people may be paying in taxes, as well as how much per week people are paying for trash pickup services, in a total of six (6) towns - including Jarratt, VA.

March Council Meeting Overview - Trash Pickup.

Summary:  There are five (5) municipalities within a 100-mile radius of the Town of Jarratt, VA, that have trash pickup twice a week. 

[In addition, so it doesn't get lost, residents of the City of Emporia, VA, have trash collection once a week  - and they pay $23 per month on their utility bill for this service.

Also, the next Council Meeting for the Town of Jarratt, VA, is at 6:00pm on Monday, April 14th, 2025.]