The Town of Westfield is not doing a bulk hurricane debris pick up. The Town quoted me today that sanitation in Westfield is "private". Bad decision!

orly? There's a statement on westfieldnj.gov saying: "We are also in the process of planning a one-time town wide curbside cleanup of storm related branches and twigs. Once all the currently outstanding storm issues are addressed, we will be able to set a date when such a cleanup will commence. "

people should not be piling branches and debris in the street
the town has enough to do without being expected to do residents work of taking their branches to the conservation center
if you don't have one already buy the sticker or use your neighbors car that has one
if sanitation wasn't private then taxes would be higher

Yes, Westfield is doing one bulk storm debris pick-up. It will be scheduled as soon as the other storm issues (trees down, poles down and power outages) are taken care of.
Go to www.westfieldnj.gov for info. If you want to cart your storm debris to the conservation center before that, it's open today and tomorrow, and possibly more to any resident with no permit needed.

I am just so tired of many of the comments on Patch. No matter what the subject, too often they are shrill, hyper-critical, ignorant or reflect an attitude that doesn't accurately appreciate the community we live in or its residents. Westfield is one of the few communities where everything works, and works well. The schools are great, the parks are beautiful, the streets are clean, the fire department comes when there is a fire, the police are visible patrolling and keeping us safe, the library is used and relevant, the garbage is picked up (not from the curb but from where you keep the cans), the leaves are picked up, there is a wonderful and successful downtown, a good civic spirit, and I could go on and on. You have to pay taxes to have all this. I recognize that no one wants waste, but we clearly get full value for our taxes in this town. This year, lets all try to be a little kinder on Patch towards each other and our community and its institutions. Times are tough, its not getting easier to maintain what we have, and while free speech prevails should we lose our perspective by failing to appreciate what we have, everyone will surely suffer, including the critics.

to abc and larry cary: We're not talking about a little debris here...maybe the town as usual doesn't report that there are more than 400 people with flooded basements as the water table in Westfield is so high and since the power went out...we have major floods and losses. If the real truth came out then maybe wonderful Westfield may lose some of it's wonder and real estate prices would go down.

400 out of over 12,000
a whole lot better than our neighboring towns
if the town has been cutting the fire police and public works departments all along where do you suggest the town gets the money to do bulk pick up?
every department but one has taken cuts
there is no money to spare
maybe the town can or is already getting state or federal assistance for bulk pick up someone says is being scheduled
good to know the conservation center has an exemption for buying stickers to assist residents
maybe people shouldn't buy houses based on the press and photos that are usually part of someone's paid ad campaign

So lets sort through it. The town has had a hurricane and the impact of it has not yet been completely dealt with, but things are being done to do so. It appears the town will be scheduling a special bulk pick-up of debris when it can get to it after dealing with many of the other problems. In the mean time, the town is waiving the need for residents to have paid for the right to deposit materials at the reclamation center in order to make it more easily available to people who want to do something with their debris right now. The fire department is helping to pump out basements as much as they can. The electric company is trying to restore power to everyone as quickly as they can. And I assume from what I have seen that fallen trees are being removed and the roads made passable as quickly as it can be done.
Why are people raving about the teachers' starting salary,the standards of conduct for teachers allegedly being lower than what they used to be, the DPW allegedly not doing anything at any time, (which can't be true since I see my street being plowed by them every time we had a bad snow this past winter), the price of a Westfield home, the ads that are used to attract people to buying a Westfield home, and insinuating that the truth about the situation is not getting out in order to protect home prices? Folks, we had a hurricane.

Pete: Your last comment overlooks precisely the point I made before, namely that I am tired of reading comments that are "shrill, hyper-critical, ignorant or reflect an attitude that doesn't accurately appreciate the community we live in or its residents." I obviously know that I and everyone in town pays for garbage collection, yet for some reason you feel comfortable trying to insult my intelligence and in doing so dismiss my view: "G]iven you don't even realize you pay privately to have garbage collection, it seems you're not really in a position to comment on whether or not we get value." I doubt very much that face to face you would feel comfortable saying this to me. That you feel comfortable saying it in this forum really causes me to question the social utility of having this mode of communication.

@Larry Cary. But don't you realize that the DPW, Fire Dept., Westfield librarians (especially the ones in the children's section on the 1st floor!) and teachers were to blame for Hurricane Irene immediately at the point when the storm winds passed 60 mph somewhere down in the Caribbean?

... I happen to agree with Larry completely and I'm not limiting my comment here to just the many people of Westfield who seem to complain over such "injustices" as branches not yet being picked up and power outages related to a storm that was of a "once every few years" amount of intensity.

Please stop and realize a few things when you go without power for a few hours/days... There are millions of people in the world who have never had power - EVER. (Many of them also have limited food and fresh water to drink much of the time as well!). At least, you can drive to a friend/family's house and take a shower or have a meal.

In other words... relax! Stop fighting/blaming people for trivial inconveniences. Be happy you don't build clay bricks in a 3rd world nation for pay of 11-cents per day and that you, instead, live in beautiful Westfield! And realize this... Those branches in front of your house will be picked up... maybe Monday, maybe Tuesday, maybe the following Monday? You won't have to look at those branches too long.

Thank you to the DPW, Fire Dept., Police Dept. and all who have been assisting our community in the wake of Hurricane Irene!

There are always people who see the glass as half full, and those who see it as half empty. The only thing everyone agrees on is there is room left in the glass. We here from both types a lot in this forum.

Yes, things are not perfect - no news there. I think that we all agree we can't afford perfection. The debate should revolve around what should we include in the services provided, and what is the acceptable "return to normal" in a situation like this. Is there (ever) a service level agreement that is expected from the power utilities, our public servants, or elected officials that is published and we can hold them to in an outage like this? Should we pay for them to do studies, public meetings, publish and get comment on the results to define that service level, or just hope they do the best in a unique situation? If you look at (good timing) all the studies done after 9/11 (obviously meriting them) and the (mainly lack of) follow up, you'll see that all that planning does not always equal results.

So, I think the best way forward is simply for government to consistently communicate what they are doing, what the current status is, and what has to be done (like fix the Cranford substation) before people can expect a return to normal . What is frustrating most folks I think is that failure to communicate up to current immediate gratification (lacking any other published) standards.

Powers that be, please come up with a better communcations plan going forward.

@Gary McCready. I agree with you. The only thing I'd like to add is that if the officials (power companies, government officials/employees, etc) do respond with answers such as "We don't know yet" or "We're working on it" or "We've got all of our work crews out there and we're doing the best we can," my hope is that such comments, usually said with sincerity and good intentions, are not met with pitchforks and mobs shouting that "anything less than a definite day time for a problem to be completely solved to perfection" is "not acceptable." But again, I agree with you.