Kansas City News Blog

When Kevin Straub was running for the Shawnee City Council in 2006, he took a $1,000 campaign contribution from Deffenbaugh Industries. But that, he says, doesn't mean he's in the pocket of the area's biggest trash hauler.

Kevin Straub

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In Shawnee, residents choose their trash hauler, signing up with one of the mom-and-pop outfits -- A-1 Disposal or Superior Disposal -- or the giant Deffenbaugh. Earlier this year, though, the city put together a task force to study new ways to manage its garbage.

The group landed on a recommendation that angered Straub and pitted him against his former campaign contributor.

The task force determined that it might be cheaper to become more like Kansas City: enter into a city-wide contract, with all residents served by a single, city-appointed hauler. In Shawnee, residents would pay their share of the trash contract through their property tax bills.

But Straub protested that only one company would be big enough to compete for such a contract. "It begins with a D," he hinted on his Web site. If Deffenbaugh took over all of Shawnee, he pointed out, the mom-and-pop trash haulers would almost certainly be crushed.

"They even sent out notices in their billing saying they would basically be out of business," Straub says of A-1 and Superior. "The city would have put them out of business."

According to Straub, Deffenbaugh doesn't have a stellar reputation in Shawnee. Case in point: Town and Country Villas, a subdivision Straub's realty firm developed and manages. "Trash is included, and when I had Deffenbaugh all I'd get were complaints," he says. "Then I hired A-1, and I've never had people brag about their trash provider. They just think A-1 is the greatest."

So Straub started an online petition, opposing the single-hauler concept. Apparently, some folks are passionate about their trash -- more than 600 residents signed on.

Armed with that civic feedback, Straub was ready to beat back the single-hauler idea when it was presented to a City Council committee last week. It worked. The council dropped the idea. No single hauler for Shawnee.

"We're fine with that," says Tom Coffman, spokesman for Deffenbaugh. The task force, he says, was "largely fair-minded," and Deffenbaugh doesn't mind competing with the other two companies. As for Straub? "We're aware of that councilman's activities tied with this issue," Coffman says. "But there's no controversy."

Not anymore, at least.