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ST. LOUIS — It was a garbage month for trash collection here in June.

An understaffed division buckled amid a seasonal surge in demand coupled with a new mandate to restart recycling service. Dumpsters across the city were left untouched and overflowing for weeks. And residents let City Hall know it, flooding social media and aldermen’s voicemails with their frustration. Reams of complaints followed.

“This is a huge disaster,� said Alderman Joe Vaccaro, who represents Lindenwood Park and other southwestern neighborhoods.

Mayor Tishaura O. Jones has largely been quiet on the issue. But her spokesman, Nick Dunne, said she cares deeply. In recent weeks, the administration has sent out crews on weekends and ramped up maintenance, to keep trucks on the street.

“The mayor and other folks in the administration check in on this every single day,� Dunne said. “We know that city residents want service they can rely on.�

Last week, Jones put trash commissioner Todd Waelterman on leave.

Two days later, the mayor, a prolific voice on the social media service Twitter, tweeted her first substantial comments on the issue: “We are working overtime to improve reliability of our refuse service,� she wrote. “Thank you in advance for your patience.�

In the past two weeks, the grumbling has dipped, some.

Still, the 4,700 complaints of overflowing containers and missed trash pickups through June mark a new high for the city, putting it on pace to shatter annual records. And it comes at a tough time: The city is already struggling to fix a 911 center that puts callers on hold and an ambulance service that arrives late to emergencies.

“It adds yet another item to a long list of reasons that people don’t want to live in the city,â€� said Alderman Tom Oldenburg, who represents ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Hills and other southwestern neighborhoods.

If it doesn’t get better fast, observers say, elected officials from the top down can expect consequences.

“Nothing irritates the citizenry more than the city failing in basic services,â€� said Ken Warren, a political scientist at ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ University. “Complaints can rise and politicians can lose.â€�

‘You can’t go to Disneyland’

ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ has had problems with trash for a while. Five years ago, the problem was the trucks: The city lacked the money to keep the fleet up to date, and on some days, nearly half of it was out of commission. A trash fee hike fixed that, but then last year, a labor shortage hit.

By July, the city was throwing out recycling with the trash in much of the city in an effort to catch up on understaffed routes. Residents who still wanted to recycle had to take items to drop-off facilities themselves.

In August, City Hall started offering a $3,000 hiring bonus to attract new employees, but even that couldn’t close the gap. At the same time, new hires could get a $5,000 hiring bonus from Waste Management Inc., which provides trash services to cities in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ County.

So in late May, when the administration announced plans to restart recycling collection after months of complaints from some residents, the crews weren’t ready. The division was still about 10 drivers short of the 50 it needed to run smoothly.

And within weeks aldermen were hearing it from residents and telling city staff they were sacrificing one service for another.

Streets Director Betherny Williams denied those allegations, and assured aldermen that trash was her employees’ No. 1 priority.

But Randy Breitenfeld, the deputy refuse commissioner, conceded the recycling restart came at the “absolute worst time� as trash volumes were spiking at the start of summer. And he didn’t have to tell residents:

They could smell it, all over.

Complaints rained down in neighborhoods from Penrose to Patch. Gravois Park resident Amanda Price reported going three weeks without pickup. Shaw resident Mike Duffy, a developer, watched trash fill every dumpster in his alley, pile 4 feet high on top of that, and then spill out into new piles around it. Dana Liljequist, a chef who lives in Dutchtown, said a visitor told him his alley looked like a war-torn Beirut. “I don’t know what they’re doing with our money,� he said.

Dawn Butler, of the West End, said she often calls the city about trash and workers tell her they’ll be there when they can. Bulk pickup is even worse, she said. “There’s a running joke around here that you have to call them to let them know you have trash, and then call them again to remind them,� she said.

By late June, aldermen were calling for a halt to the recycling restart to focus on fixing the trash problem.

“Sometimes you have to resist political pressure and tell people some hard facts,� Alderwoman Sharon Tyus, who represents Wells-Goodfellow and other northwestern neighborhoods, told city staff in a hearing. “When daddy loses his job, you can’t go to Disneyland.�

A ghost story

Williams, the streets director, didn’t cancel the new recycling pickup. She told reporters the day after the hearing that crews had begun working seven days a week and that mechanics would soon begin a second shift to get through a truck maintenance backlog.

But Vaccaro said he didn’t see the point of paying so much overtime when people could take recycling to collection points throughout the city. “They just need to make trash the priority,� he said.

Alderman Christine Ingrassia, whose ward runs from Midtown to Tower Grove East, said the city had to raise wages if it wanted to see improvement. “We aren’t paying people enough for them to be loyal,� she said.

Duffy, the Shaw resident, argued the city should just get out of the business.

“There’s a market-based solution to this,� he said. “If we don’t want to do that, then we should just fold and let the county take us over.�

Dunne, the mayor’s spokesman, said recycling isn’t the problem, wages are under negotiation and privatization isn’t really an option — the city uses special trucks to pick up alleyway dumpsters, he said, and contractors don’t have the same equipment.

Besides, those contractors have had their own struggles of late. Officials in Ferguson and ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ County said Republic Services had trouble staffing routes there last month, an issue echoed in cities large and small across the country.

City Hall is, however, considering changes. It’s trying to figure out which parts of the city generate the most — and least — trash. Then it could send more trucks to places that generate more trash. “We’re hoping to identify some opportunities where we can be more efficient,� Dunne said.

But that could be politically perilous: Early results from a city study showed that many of the lower-yield areas would be on the less populous north side, whose voters helped make Jones the first Black woman to be ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½â€™ mayor.

But failing to find a long-term solution to the mess could be equally dangerous. There’s an old ghost story in politics about a mayor in Chicago, Michael Bilandic, who couldn’t clear the streets after a snowstorm in the 1970s. He promptly lost reelection.

It was one of the first things that came to mind for former Alderman Joe Roddy, who left office last year after more than three decades in office.

“Not collecting trash can lose you elections,� he said. “That’s the bottom line.�