Nitido: No Trash Pickup Fee


By Dan Van Riper, Section Diaries
Posted on Thu Oct 02, 2008 at 06:58:24 AM EST

At last night's Council of Albany Neighborhoods (CANA) meeting, Albany Comptroller Tom Nitido declared that the City will NOT start charging for picking up trash from City homes.  "It's not true," he said.

The front page Hearst article on Wednesday refers to a 134 page report prepared by Clough Harbor for the City and submitted to the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC.)  This pile of paper simply lists options for running the City trash system. One option which was listed was charging residents per bag.

Basically, this is a pile of boilerplate collected at taxpayer expense.  It is part of Jerry Jenning's desperate ongoing effort to expand his Rapp Road Dump deeper into the Pine Bush preserve, trying to convince the DEC to give him the go ahead.  It appears that Brian Nearing cherry picked these items out of the report to create the impression of impending doom.

Nitido pointed out the obvious, that we City residents are already paying for trash removal with our City taxes.  "They would have to call it a tax increase, because that's what it would be," he said.

I should also add that "free" trash removal was originally instituted to stop the dumping of trash in public places and in basements of houses, which was a tremendous fire hazard.

Nitido claimed that the dump made a profit of around $11 or $12 million for the City.  Under questioning, he admitted that after expenses are figured, "The net is more like $4 to $5 million."  I'm very skeptical of even that much.

So don't worry folks.  This is one tax they're leaving alone.  For now.

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Nitido: No Trash Pickup Fee | 7 comments (7 topical, 0 hidden)
Dan, while I'm sure the problems with (none / 0) (#1)
by Jim Travers on Thu Oct 02, 2008 at 04:52:06 PM EST
garbage being dumped in building basements and empty lots was a fire hazard, that's not why  Albany got it's "free" municipal waste service established.

Many smaller independent haulers operated in Albany prior to this and before organized crime syndicates took over the industry. Ala the garbage strike in Memphis several years before, many local minority haulers decided to act in unison and dramatically raise their rates.

The citizenry was outraged and took out their anger on Corning by dumping garbage on his property. The very next day Corning announced the city would institute "free" garbage pick-up and disposal, thereby effectively putting the haulers out of business at the same time pleasing the voters.

Didn't Know That, Jim (none / 0) (#2)
by Dan Van Riper on Sat Oct 04, 2008 at 05:10:11 AM EST
That would have also had the effect of keeping old Italian mafia out of the local garbage business and retaining it for Albany's Irish mafia. I'll bet that was the real motivating factor for that evil SOB Corning.

Any idea when the garbage dumping incident took place, like as precisely as possible?  I'd love to track down any old newspaper reports about it.

nitido (none / 0) (#3)
by DIA on Wed Oct 08, 2008 at 05:43:59 PM EST
the fact that Nitido claimed the dump is making a profit of $11-$12 million should disqualify him from his job.   How many times do we have to go over this?

Unacceptable on any level for him to be repeating the talking points of the mayor (and the times onion).    

albany needs to get out of the cash for trash business (just like Nicky D recently did).

Not accurate (none / 0) (#4)
by albany283 on Wed Oct 08, 2008 at 07:44:51 PM EST
I was at the CANA meeting, Nitido never claimed there was a $12 million profit from the dump.  He clearly stated that night, and at other times, that the $12 million is a gross revenue offset by costs with the net probably around $4-5 million.  As I recall, he was walking through the revenue chart when Dan jumped in with a question ... it wasn't proding AND he NEVER claimed there was a $12 million profit.

Yes, Accurate (none / 0) (#5)
by Dan Van Riper on Thu Oct 09, 2008 at 05:52:52 AM EST

Nitido said at least three times that "most of the $12 million in revenue comes from the landfill."  I asked him if that profit was around "$11 or almost $12 million dollars" and he agreed without contradicting me.

My wife asked him about figuring in expenses.  We've asked him every single October CANA meeting the same exact question for I don't know how many years.  Every year Nitido treats the question as if it were extraordinary, and says that we should call him tomorrow and he will get back to us with the figures. And, of course he never has them available.

This year, Nitido broke with tradition and told us "Council member Calsolaro requested those figures, so I looked into them.  The net is around $4 or $5 million."

We asked him several times to clarify these figures.

So, albany283, what exactly are you claiming?

[ Parent ]

No, not accurate (none / 0) (#6)
by albany283 on Thu Oct 09, 2008 at 04:43:14 PM EST
and your response suggests what happened ... he was reviwing revenue categories and there is $12 million in revenue associated with the landfill that's on one side of the ledger; when you offset that with expenses there's a net revenue number which is around $5 million (which you're free to dispute).  He has never suggested that the landfill generates a $12 million net revenue profit to the city.  I will chalk it up to a misunderstanding on your part, you are quick to jump.

Yes, but he did tell the council at a committee (none / 0) (#7)
by Jim Travers on Sun Oct 12, 2008 at 03:40:35 AM EST
meeting last fall that the net income from the landfill was somewhere between 3 to 4 million. This should be reflected in the meeting minutes and should end all argument about this.

But this is small potatos, really.

Why isn't anyone demanding to know how it was possible that CHA'a longevity figure of 2015 was off by six years. They have engineers who calculate the cubic feet of landspace every ton of garbage needs to occupy.

The landfill is permitted to take in 1,000 tons of garbage every day. Figure out what the tipping fee is per ton and multiply that figure by 1,000.

Now multiply that figure by 261 days operation per year (to be thrifty). Times six years.

That's what's missing from the picture.

At $35 per ton, that $54,810,000 missing from the City's coffers.

Six years worth of gate receipts -at 261,000 tons per year. At the discounted rate of $35. per ton.

But the problem is that there are no such records for that quantity of traffic crossing the scales at Rapp Road.

Yeah, let's forget about the illegal weapons and the tax evasive actions that put them in the hands of criminals in Blue and let's forget about the scrap for cash debacle and let's all focus on the enormous and horrendously corrupt fraud in the DA's office and the mystery of the MISSING $6,000!!

PS: MMS&I I don't particularly dislike conners and I think he'd tell you that we have no real problems with each other, aside from the fact that I believe he's repeatedly exercised extremely poor judgment throughout his adult life.

[ Parent ]

Nitido: No Trash Pickup Fee | 7 comments (7 topical, 0 hidden)
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