Members keep Oceanside Sanitary District above water

OCEANSIDE — Oceanside Sanitary District Unit members are dedicated to keeping the community in which they work in tip-top shape.

In an area with around 13,000 residents and 600 businesses, our 18-member unit stays busy.

Members have many responsibilities at the Oceanside Sanitary District, including clerical work, building maintenance and mechanical work. CSEA members also manage the laborers.

Supervisors Jay Tavalaro and Louis Catalanotto check some paperwork on the copy machine.

“It’s a huge benefit to the town to have their own sanitation service,” said Oceanside Sanitary District Unit President Jay Tavalaro. “Residents can call here and have their problem solved pretty quickly. A lot of larger towns don’t get that level of service.”

During natural disasters, sanitation department employees work nonstop to eliminate anything that could be considered an eyesore.

“Sixty to 70 percent of the town was under water after [Hurricane] Sandy,” said Tavalaro. “All of the town’s trucks were submerged. It took the mechanics two days just to get the fleet running.”

Frank Licari checks the schedules of the mechanics on duty.

“We worked 10 to 12-hour days for months,” said unit member Frank Licari. “It was overwhelming.”

The mechanics also provide roadside assistance to sanitation trucks. If one breaks down or gets a flat tire, they go out into the field to service the truck.

“Having us do the truck repairs saves the town a lot of money since we usually don’t have to send anything out of the building to get fixed,” said Licari.

Keeping repairs in-house also makes workflow more efficient.

“If we send a truck out, we may not have it back for a week,” said Licari. “Provided we have the parts we need here, we can have a truck fixed and on the road the next day.”

Supervisors in the unit are responsible for planning the work schedules for laborers, supervising laborers daily projects and handling resident inquiries.

“We handle a lot of logistics,” said Tavalaro. “Plus, we go out on the road to supervise sanitation workers to make sure they’re operating safely and that all the workers are loading correctly.”

CSEA members also ensure their work site building and grounds are well kept.

“When people first visit our building, they ask us where we keep the garbage trucks,” said Licari. ”When I tell them, ‘you’re standing in it,’ they can’t believe it because the building is so clean and well maintained.”

The clerical staff is hard at work maintaining the district’s administrative needs. From left are James Mitchell, Wayne Vurture and Jackie Urli.

The clerical staff also plays a very important part in the Oceanside Sanitary District’s effectiveness. They schedule sanitation pickups, cut checks, file reports and manage many other tasks for the town’s day-to-day clerical needs.

The relationships that unit members have formed with each other also lends itself well to their strong job performance.

“We have breakfast, lunch and sometimes dinner together,” said Licari “We get along really well and have each other’s backs.”

— Wendi Bowie