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Alex Cabrero ReportingChanges are coming to the Salt Lake County landfill after a consultant found employee morale was extremely low.
The first big change already happened last week when landfill director Romney Stewart was told to retire or be let go from his position. Several more recommendations from the consultant were listed. Now the Salt Lake County council is ready to act on them.
Any good business leader knows you can't be successful if your employees are miserable. Based on a consultants findings, employees at the landfill were miserable, and now the county wants to cheer them up.
Something has been stinking at the landfill for quite a while now and it's not just the garbage.
Peter Corroon, Mayor of Salt Lake County: "It was our decision to shake things up, essentially."
Salt Lake County mayor Peter Corroon says when he first heard employees at the county landfill were upset with their management, it was time to hire an outside consultant to find out just how upset and why.
Peter Corroon: "They confirmed there really are some morale problems and some issues up at the management that needed to be dealt with."
Among the issues employees were upset with, they say religion was considered when hiring employees, there was a sense of favoritism to vendors and communications at the landfill, and they had to give reduced trash drop-off prices for family and friends of management.
That all led to 79-percent of landfill workers not trusting the landfill executive director, Romney Stewart, who was told he would no longer keep his position.
Peter Corroon: "It's always difficult when you're dealing with people and with people's lives, and so. But sometimes it's best for the county as a whole, for the citizens, and frankly for some of those employees as well to make that change."
As for what other changes will be coming, the Salt Lake County council is deciding that. They're discussing creating a subcommittee just to look at landfill issues.
We left messages with Stewart, the former director, but so far, our call has not been returned.
