Mr. Sam Chandler

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  www.heraldnet.com/article/20080315/NEWS01/780286733/0/E - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 3/15/2008    Last Visited: 3/16/2008  

  Sam Chandler, director of the Snohomish County Public Works Department's solid waste division, said his office averages one phone call every three minutes from someone asking how to get rid of their old equipment.
  
  "That's one of the biggest issues right now," Chandler said."That's really replaced the more traditional recycling questions."
  
  Mill Creek City Councilwoman Donna Michelson can't help with the cost, but she's organizing a recycling event for May 17 at Mill Creek City Hall that will allow people to get rid of most household electronics.

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  www.losbanosenterprise.com/114/story/49010.html - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 9/25/2009    Last Visited: 9/25/2009  

  "You know it's bad when the landfills are hurting."Waste from construction sites once comprised a considerable portion of the trash brought to the landfills, but that changed with the building boom's abrupt end, said Sam Chandler, a deputy public works director who oversees the landfills. "It just completely stopped," Chandler said.Landfill workers also have recorded a marked drop in the amount of trash delivered from residential curb-side pickups, he said. "We think it's partly because people are buying less and holding on to things longer, but it's also probably because there are just less people here. People have literally left."The landfills' recycling intake also has declined, possibly because more people are choosing to turn in their bottles and cans to collect the redemption value.The landfills are slated to take several measures this month aimed at closing a roughly $4 million budget shortfall. Eight workers will lose their jobs Sept. 25. Reduced hours will take effect at both sites Sept. 28. Besides closing 30 minutes earlier during the week, the landfills no longer will operate on Sundays and will open for only half the day on Saturdays.Chandler said those reductions will result in lower equipment, fuel, maintenance and overtime costs."We had a choice between lowering our costs and raising our rates, and it ultimately was decided that we should lower costs," said Jesse Brown, executive director at the Merced County Association of Governments, which governs how the landfills operate.
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  Waste from construction sites once comprised a considerable portion of the trash brought to the landfills, but that changed with the building boom's abrupt end, said Sam Chandler, a deputy public works director who oversees the landfills. "It just completely stopped," Chandler said.
  
  Landfill workers also have recorded a marked drop in the amount of trash delivered from residential curb-side pickups, he said.
  ...
  Chandler said those reductions will result in lower equipment, fuel, maintenance and overtime costs.

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  www.heraldnet.com/article/20090509/NEWS01/705099911/0/F - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 5/9/2009    Last Visited: 5/10/2009  

  Sam Chandler's $2.5 million claim is a first step toward filing a lawsuit. If the county does not settle by the end of this month, Chandler will be able to sue.
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  Chandler started working as solid waste director in July 2006, supervising 160 employees. The county placed him on administrative leave last October. Later that month, he was told to resign or be terminated.
  
  Chandler chose to resign, but says he did nothing wrong that should have caused him to be forced out. In the claim, he says he has suffered from loss of past and future income and loss of job opportunities, as well as emotional and physical distress. He could not be reached for comment on Friday.
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  The March 30 claim asserts that the retaliation started after Chandler told Public Works Director Steve Thomsen in late 2007 that six solid waste supervisors had falsified information.
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  Chandler accused the supervisors of inflating the amount of miles they drove county vehicles to justify taking them home, Nichols said.
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  Chandler actually helped improve the situation with better record keeping, he said, but the employees were angry because they felt he unfairly blamed all of them.
  
  The union's relationship with solid waste managers has improved since Chandler left and Matt Zybas took over as director, Trefry said.

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  www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_050709INV-snohomish - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 5/7/2009    Last Visited: 5/9/2009  

  Sam Chandler believes he was punished for trying to change a culture of perks and lax accountability. Now he is packing for a move to California, where he's landed a new job after being forced out.
  
  "I was told I could either resign or be fired because, no particular reason was given, but it just wasn't gonna work out," he said.
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  Chandler says when he was hired in 2006, his mission was to find ways to save ratepayers money.
  
  He says one thing that jumped out was Solid Waste supervisors using county trucks to commute back and forth to work at a total cost of nearly $20,000 a year.
  
  "It has no county benefit attached to it whatsoever," Chandler said. "They knew that, they could not rationalize that habit and that practice."
  
  Chandler says the supervisors claimed they needed the trucks to respond to emergencies such as a fire or an unlocked gate at a transfer station. But emergencies were rare.
  
  "And that's what raised the red flag to me," he said.
  
  Both the KING 5 Investigators and Chandler examined the take-home vehicle authorization forms the supervisors had to fill out to justify taking home the trucks under the county's policy.
  
  KING
  
  Former Snohomish County Solid Waste Director Sam Chandler is filing a $2.5 million dollar claim for damages after he says he was forced out of his job.
  
  Chandler says he was suspicious because he couldn't find documentation for the callouts. And five supervisors wrote down exactly the same number of callouts for 2006 - 113.
  
  "And I said, wait a minute, one you're not getting called out that many times, and if you were getting called out to totally different stations, you all wouldn't have gotten 113 calls in one year, it would have been 90 or 80," Chandler said.
  
  Chandler says the supervisors told him they hadto write down that many callouts to justify taking home their trucks.
  
  The county acknowledges the supervisors used a formula, so the KING 5 Investigators asked how many times people were called out for actual emergencies. They couldn't or wouldn't tell us.
  
  But, Chandler says he convinced his bosses use of county vehicles was nothing but a perk and ended the practice.
  
  Chandler was also hired right in the middle of a firestorm over wasteful spending on a truck, which the KING 5 Investigators exposed in a report last summer. A $174,000 truck called the Dinosaur sat unused for more than a year. Back then, Chandler told us that it was a mistake.
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  Yet Chandler says he was reprimanded for embarrassing his boss when he called the truck a mistake. Click here to read an Investigators report on the Dinosaur.
  
  Chandler says he met resistance every time he attempted reform. 
  
  He wanted employees to punch time clocks.
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  The city controller investigated and found no ethical violations, but Chandler says he was asked to leave anyway.

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  www.heraldnet.com/article/20081021/NEWS01/710219874/0/F - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 10/21/2008    Last Visited: 10/22/2008  

  The union representing solid waste workers accuses Sam Chandler of making false statements regarding use of county vehicles.
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  Solid Waste Division director Sam Chandler made disparaging and untrue statements about division workers at a September meeting of the county's Solid Waste Advisory Committee, said James Trefry, a spokesman for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 109.
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  The union, in its grievance and in letters to county leaders, refused to sit down at a negotiating table with Chandler and has demanded a public apology.
  
  Chandler accused workers of driving county vehicles home on the county's dime and other ethical breaches, Trefry said.
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  Chandler's put county solid waste workers "in a very bad and undeserved light in a public forum," according to the union's grievance.
  
  It's not clear whether Chandler's administrative leave is connected with the union's complaint.
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  The union submitted a vote of "no confidence" against Chandler in July, but the relationship seemed to be improving, Trefry said.
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  The problem isn't with Snohomish County, but with Chandler, Trefry said.
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  About 160 people work under Chandler, Thomsen said.
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  Chandler has been the county's solid waste director for about two years.

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  www.heraldnet.com/article/20080219/NEWS01/748752669/0/F - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 2/19/2008    Last Visited: 2/20/2008  

  "The average person might not think rummaging through garbage is one of the best jobs they might have," county Solid Waste director Sam Chandler said."We love it, though."
  
  It's been 10 years since the county last rifled through garbage to study what is thrown away and how much, Chandler said.Knowing what is going to landfills helps officials find ways to steer more items to recycling and improve recycling education campaigns.
  
  That especially includes a new government focus on televisions and electronic waste, he said.
  
  If approved, the county will hire a contractor to spend a year intermittently sorting through garbage brought into transfer stations.Garbage and recycling collected curbside won't be studied, Chandler said.
  
  Officials hope to find examples of businesses that are dumping valuable and recyclable clean wood or plastic, Chandler said.That translates into more money for the county and keeps garbage rates from climbing more steeply, he said.
  
  The job won't be too gross, Chandler said."It's a lot of fun," he said."I'm a garbage guy, though.You run into an occasional diaper, but you try not to focus on that too much.You focus on good, dry, easy-to-sort stuff."
  
  Lots of people compost their food waste, or put it in with their yard waste, Chandler said."We've taken some of the 'ick' factor out of it," he said.

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  www.heraldnet.com/article/20080219/BLOG08/962047347 - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 2/19/2008    Last Visited: 2/19/2008  

  Sounds gross, but Sam Chandler, the county's solid waste director, says it's actually a lot of fun."You run into an occasional dirty diaper, but you try not to focus on that too much," Chandler says.

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  Aluminum Association | Tucson Neighborhoods To Get... - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 3/19/2002    Last Visited: 3/25/2004  

  The West Side neighborhoods include Mission, Ironwood and Star Pass, said Sam Chandler, deputy director of Tucson's Solid Waste Management Department.

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  Arizona Daily Sun - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 8/6/2002    Last Visited: 8/6/2002  

  "That's where the cream is," said Sam Chandler, assistant director of the Solid Waste Department."Right now that's a completely untapped market in Tucson.If we do that, we can start seeing numbers like they have in Seattle, San Jose, Portland."
  
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  Contract flap stalls recycling program - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 7/26/2002    Last Visited: 7/26/2002  

  Sam Chandler, deputy director of Tucson's Solid Waste Management Department, said ambiguity in the barrel tests led to the dispute that threatens the program.
  
  "During the testing process it became apparent that the criteria we used to test the containers had some ambiguity in it," Chandler said."It was found that (Toter) met the minimum requirements."
  
  Chandler said the portion of the new recycling program that is already implemented is bringing in about 20 tons more recyclables per week than the former program.
  
  "It's been going great so far," Chandler said."We have a real need to get these containers into people's hands so they can participate in this program."
  
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