Driver Dumps His Grievances at City Hall

City Bureau of Sanitation Department driver Felipe Espinoza Suarez was mad as hell and just couldn’t take it to the dump anymore. And so, the 10-year veteran garbage hauler made a detour Wednesday and deposited an estimated 10 tons of garbage in front of City Hall.

“I’m protesting for all of us,” Suarez, 32, proclaimed to the cheers and stares of disbelief from scores of city workers milling on the Main Street sidewalk at the lunch hour.

Suarez said that he was protesting what he maintained were unsafe trucks and on-the-job stress. Earlier this week, a sanitation driver died of injuries suffered when his rig overturned on the Ventura Freeway.

The director of the Bureau of Sanitation, Delwin Biagi, could see the load of trash from his City Hall East office window. He rushed outside to direct the cleanup. “Looks like a full load,” he said.

Biagi said he did not immediately understand Suarez’s complaints and could not say whether the driver would be fired. Suarez was not arrested or otherwise disciplined on the spot.

After talking to gawkers for a few minutes, Suarez was taken to City Health Services for observation and released, said Mike Miller, assistant sanitation director. Suarez cannot return to work until he gets a “clean bill of health” from his doctor, Miller said.