Funny Business

If you're like most people, every week you go to work, pay your bills, feed your dog, play with your kids, and put out your trash. If you are like most people, that is.

If you are Lower Providence Township supervisor Don Thomas, you undoubtedly do all that, and put your trash out, too, but the difference is, who is picking it up?

G&C trash truck pulling out of Thomas' driveway on trash day

As I'm sure most everyone knows, like many other communities on the East Coast and in Pennsylvania, our community has one company, J.P. Mascaro, under contract to remove residents' trash. Unless you can  prove you are eligible for an exemption or, in rare instances, grandfathered from compliance by having another contractor in place prior to 1990,  the current contracted hauler must pick up your trash.

One such exemption is that if you own a business, you can use whatever company hauls your business trash away in lieu of the Township trash hauler. Supervisor Thomas claims that he owns and runs a valid business, Earl Thomas Heating Oil,  out of his home address and is thus exempted from compliance with the Township ordinance, a claim he substantiated by taking out a business license with the Township in that name. Accordingly, he is having HIS family's trash picked up by a private hauler, G & C Waste Services of East Norriton (see photos).   

While it is true that at in the past, there WAS a family business - Earl F. Thomas Heating Oil Inc.  - being operated out of  Don's home address, that business was sold to competitor Jay Gress, Inc. approximately three years ago, according to a principal at Gress. My understanding is that a condition of the sale was that Mr. Thomas was to be given a desk job at Jay Gress, and my sources confirm that not only does Mr. Thomas work there in a full-time capacity as a dispatcher, but that he "shows up for work every day and apparently only ever leaves the office to eat lunch..." Really? So when, exactly, is he running this business of his? Why would he even have another job if he was running his own business?

I suspect Jay Gress, Inc. would be very interested to know that a company they acquired and presumably paid good money for is allegedly still operating, particularly if there is a non-compete provision in the agreement of sale.

A Gress source told me that as a typical rule, whenver Jay Gress has acquired a business, it keeps the old entity name open, but the business address is changed to Gress' corporate address in Conshohocken to facilitate the transition from the old business's customers to Jay Gress. So, although the business name may still be active (and per the State Corporation Commission, it is), it is no longer owned or operated by the Thomas family and as such, the business license taken out by Don Thomas in their former company's name could potentially be considered fraudulent and taken out in an effort to evade compliance with the ordinance and payment of the contracted trash fees - fees that the rest of us must pay. 

G&C trash container awaiting pickup at the Thomas residence

Whether or not you agree with the issue of a single hauler or not, it is the current law of the land, and it's only fair that if residents are subject to it, supervisors should be too unless there is a legitimate exception.  

As an elected official, supervisors take an oath to "serve with fidelity", which Webster's defines as "strict observance of promises and duties".  One would presume compliance with the Township's own ordinances would fall into that category, and that our elected officials would not try to get away with any 'funny business', as it's no laughing matter to the rest of us.