It’s not often the City of Apache Junction is accused of having a more beautiful mind and a more steely spine than the Town of Paradise Valley. Yet, at least on one issue recently, it has and does.
Readers may recall Paradise Valley’s aborted attempt to transition to a single-hauler trash system not too long ago. It considered so for all reasons rooted in common-sense. Lower prices. Fewer trucks. Less noise and pollution. A more orderly system. 
Paradise Valley, along with Apache Junction, was the only town or city in Arizona remaining that still used an archaic, jungle-system where every company and truck could just have at it.
As town officials wisely moved to consider bids from various trash haulers one company that bid but was not selected launched anonymous, spurious attacks on the reform.
Notwithstanding the hypocrisy, certain elected officials in Paradise Valley got weak-kneed over some opposing emails despite polling showing widespread support for the change. Eventually, the Town Council did not back up town staff and rejected the transition.
Fast forward to Apache Junction. Tired of its own hauling chaos, officials there embarked on the exact same journey as Paradise Valley’s late last year. And when the same company that failed to gain the bid in Paradise Valley lost likewise in Apache Junction, it embarked on a near identical scorched-earth campaign in the East Valley city. Yet, a funny thing happened on the way to the Apache Junction public forum. Elected officials didn’t collapse under the weight of emails generated by outrageous claims. They hung in there, showed leadership and forged ahead, eventually passing the approvals necessary to change a bad system. Apache Junction understood the silent majority was just that and the community will be the better for its sagaciousness.
Now, Apache Junction is no longer the largest municipality in Arizona with the worst trash hauling system in the state. Paradise Valley is.
Oh well, at least the tony town has a Ritz-Carlton coming soon.