Stupid Is as Stupid Does


By DIA, Section News
Posted on Tue May 20, 2008 at 04:27:42 AM EST

Fourteen years or so ago we knew we had a landfill problem here in Albany. We were going to run out of space. So Mayor Jennings put together a plan. He found a nice place for a new landfill and spent $5 million of our tax dollars on it. Turns out that the land is actually protected wetlands and can't be a landfill. I'm sorry, but you don't get much more stupid than that. Unless, you really just wanted to buy the land because the people who owned it might have personal connections to you and thus you really just wanted to get $5 million into their hands. Then it is pretty clever.

But on the surface, barring corruption, it is mind numbingly dumb.

Now, many long years later, we are still facing the same problem (No, I don't mean Jennings, I mean the landfill). And we are broke. And in debt. See if this makes any sense to you?
To help pay for the proposed expansion, Councilman Dominick Calsolaro said the city should sell 363 acres it acquired in Coeymans. The city had planned to use that site for dumping garbage but faces strong local and legal opposition. The Coeymans land, bounded by the Thruway and Coeymans Creek, cost city taxpayers about $5.2 million in 2006.

"The cost of this is a little more than what we paid for the Coeymans land," said Calsolaro, who offered the suggestion as an alternative to borrowing the money
Seem reasonable to sell something that has no value to you but has value to other people? When you really need the money. Anyone got a problem with that? Oh...wait. Make sure not to have any coffee in your mouth when you read the next installment in the stupid series.
Council member James Sano responded that the state Department of Environmental Conservation requires the city have a backup plan for its garbage, even if that plan may not prove viable.
Thump. If that doesn't feel like a big load of stupid right in your lap, I'm not sure what would. But I've got an idea!! If the state requires plans but they don't have to be viable, how about we just tell them we are going to put the landfill at the Harriman Campus? Then Mr. Sano and the State can both satisfy their requirements. If there is one thing this mayor and his puppet council are world class at, it is coming up with non-viable plans.

As usual, Councilman Conti played his role perfectly. Say he is concerned about going along with the mayor, then goes along with the mayor.
"I am not a big fan of the landfill expansion," [Conti] said. "Without that expansion, the numbers I cited are that much worse."
And finally the Times Union continues its policy of repeating the mayor's lies so many times that they become the truth. Like clockwork. Again, as we've explained multiple times on this here blog, this statement is wildly inaccurate:
The landfill generates $13 million annually or about 10 percent of the city's budget.
Homework Assignment for Times Union Reporters:

A Times Union reporter generates $50,000 a year in take home salary (Gross Income). The reporter then pays state and federal taxes along with some FICA bits. The reporter also chips in for his health insurance plan. When all is said and done, the Times Union reporter takes home about $35,000 in actual pay.

The Times Union reporter has a wife, 1 kid, a mortgage and one car payment. When all of the Times Union reporter's bills are added up for the year (let's call this The Budget) they come to $40,000.

At the end of the year, how much money does the times union reporter have.

A) $50,000-$40,000 = $10,000 (whohoo!! party!!)

B) $35,000-$40,000 = -$5,000 (oops)

Choose A or B (Please do not choose C again, Fred)

The fact is that the landfill brings in income BEFORE EXPENSES of about $13 million. It isn't clear what the true expenses to operate the landfill and service the landfill debt are but it is likely in the neighborhood of $5-$7 million a year. Some years it is more since we have spent a couple million on legal bills. So, one more time, I will point you to the facts.
You raise a very valid point about the revenue from the Albany landfill as it relates to the city’s budget. The $13M is a figure that is nice to see on the revenue side of the budget, but take out the cost of repaying debt service, operation costs such as the almost $1M for cover material, and the net profit is around $6M. In a $155M budget, $6M is about 4%, not the 10% that the city keeps putting out there as the economic benefit of operating the landfill. Add in the proposed $25 million in bonding for the landfill over the next two years, and it is easy to see that the revenues are not all they are cracked up to be.
Times Union Extra Credit Project: Each year the city of Albany spends $6-$7 million to operate the landfill. Please provide a detailed report of who those people are who are getting this money, how much money they receive, and how they are personally connected to the Mayor.

Voting Results: All of the votes were 11-3. Ellis, Smith and Calsolaro were the three.

< Times Union Staff Cuts | Secret Voting >

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Stupid Is as Stupid Does | 11 comments (11 topical, 0 hidden)
Suggested slogan for the city of Albany (none / 0) (#1)
by albany layman on Tue May 20, 2008 at 07:00:19 AM EST
"Garbage is our business"

To save money, they had to borrow now... (none / 0) (#2)
by Jim Travers on Tue May 20, 2008 at 07:54:37 AM EST
according to Nickie D.

See the cowboy's post of his note taken at the Finance Committee meeting on May 8th:
http://www.democracyinalbany.com/story/2008/5/7/13302/66843

Another disturbing thing Andy's notes reveal is that if the NYSDEC does't approve the expansion of the Rapp Road Landfill they intend to sell the bonds on the open market, which is illegal.

Actual Revenue (none / 0) (#3)
by nycowboy on Tue May 20, 2008 at 08:27:40 AM EST
Tom Nitido noted at the Finance Committee meeting that the actual net revenue of the landfill, after all expenses are accounted for is close to $2-3 million dollars -- after bonding and legal fees.

He did not say if that includes the cost of trash collection in the city. Dominick didn't press Nitido further, and I tried to remain rather anonymous at the meeting so to hear the city's frank opinions.

We do know the landfill pays for free trash collection for the city and theoretically lower costs for businesses in the city (although apparently Waste Management disagrees as they find it cheaper to long-haul their waste to Virgina).

Which is not necessarily a good thing. Schenectady, with it's trash fee reports that it has encouraged recycling, and has led the city to haul 3% less trash then prior to the fee.

http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2008/may/15/0515_lesstrash/


In 2005, the city started charging for its trash collection. Residents are charged a flat fee, but businesses and nonprofits are charged by the gallon, based on the size of containers. Recycling is collected for free, motivating them to stop throwing cans and paper in with the rest of their trash.

"The more you recycle, the less you pay," Olsen said. "So they pay a little more attention to their waste stream and recycle more."

I'm not convinced that the city is actually making much in the way of revenue on the landfill or decreasing illegal dumping (which is the mayor's favorite reason for the status quo).

I wish folks would stop using the term... (none / 0) (#4)
by Jim Travers on Tue May 20, 2008 at 08:54:05 AM EST
Free Garbage collection in the City of Albany. It is not free by any strech of the imagination.

The cost of collection is incorporated into yoour property taxes.

"We do know the landfill pays for free trash collection for the city and theoretically lower costs for businesses in the city (although apparently Waste Management disagrees as they find it cheaper to long-haul their waste to Virgina)."

Andy have you been feeling ill lately? The city does not collect commercial garbage from businesses. Busisness must pay for a private hauler to collect their waste.

And what's with the Waste Management statement? At least for any nearby municipality their garbage goes to Rapp Road. Maybe WMI hauls waste from NYC down to VA, but none collected from anywhere upstate is shipped out of state.

Andy, you know plenty of folks who you can call to get your facts straight before posting such patently false information.

That said, I appreciate your including in your comment the link to the Gazette's articleand relating Nitido's take on the landfill's bottom line.

Re: I wish folks would stop using the term.. (none / 0) (#9)
by nycowboy on Tue May 20, 2008 at 01:16:08 PM EST
Waste Management is not a client of the city landfill any more. They haven't been for at least a few years. It's cheaper for them to export waste from the city to their own out of state landfill then it is to pay the city what it wants.

Keeping Allied Waste from doing the same is why the city previously gave them a 5% discount atop of the 300+ tpd rate they where currently getting from the city.

The city does not charge residents for trash pickup unlike Schenectady which assess a $120 a year "trash fee". There is no trash fee in Albany. It's a "free service" underwritten by revenue from the landfill.

It's foolish to think that Albany is going to have it's own landfill for much longer. Syracuse, Binghamton, anywhere in the Hudson Valley except Sullivan County, no longer have landfills.  

[ Parent ]

Long Hauling Commerical Trash & City (none / 0) (#10)
by nycowboy on Tue May 20, 2008 at 01:25:13 PM EST
Also, when the Rapp Road landfill closes, it will likely the city will keep their transfer station open at Rapp Road.

This transfer station will accept trash both from residents, businesses, and commercial haulers, much like Schenectady and most other upstate cities currently do. They will charge not by the tonnage but the cubic foot, like Schenectady does, as that relates more to hauling costs.

88 long haul semi trucks will take the transfer station's trash to a distant landfill -- most likely Allied Waste's Seneca Meadows in Seneca Falls or Waste Management's High Acres in Rochester, or somewhere out of state.

[ Parent ]

Rex Smith Just Repeated the 10% Fallacy... (none / 0) (#5)
by makome on Tue May 20, 2008 at 09:27:57 AM EST
On WAMC not 10 minutes ago...

From SAVE THE PINE BUSH: (none / 0) (#6)
by Dan Van Riper on Tue May 20, 2008 at 09:33:17 AM EST

Lynne Jackson ("The Wife") is one of the founders of Save the Pine Bush and is leading the community fight against expansion of the Albany Dump, euphemistically known as the "Landfill."  (Jim Travers is also working to stop the dump, as is NY Cowboy.) After seeing DIA's post, I asked her to comment on the stupid approval of Dump bonds last night:

I am outraged that the City, prior to receiving a single approval, has bonded our future to bury garbage in the Pine Bush.

The 3 acres described in the Times Union article in this quote, "The plan also would require taking about 3 acres of state-owned pine barrens that are not part of the protected Albany Pine Bush Preserve." was promised by Gov. Pataki to be forever wild on May 2, 2000.  I have an audio recording of the promise.

Save the Pine Bush has been asking the City to have a discussion on a rational solution to solid waste since 2005.  Our efforts have been totally ignored.

"My mother, whenever she saw a tiny piece of bread on the floor, would quickly pick it up and say .  . . 'I ask God's forgiveness for this impiety'.  Then, she would kiss the crumb of bread and eat it."   from Son of Mountains, by Yassin Aref (http://www.yassinaref.com/book.htm)

There is something really wrong when some people on one side of the world have so little that they kiss crumbs of bread, while on the other side of the world, we have so much garbage, we pay millions of dollars to dump it somewhere.

-Lynne Jackson

From DOMINICK CALSOLARO: (none / 0) (#7)
by Dan Van Riper on Tue May 20, 2008 at 09:42:55 AM EST

Dominick sent this email last night reporting on the bond vote.  I didn't ask his permission to post it, so I might get in trouble. But I think this needs to become part of the record.  It is sufficiently neutral enough to post, except for one very understandable snarl which I have tactfully deleted and replaced with brackets:

Tonight the CC voted for about $10 MILLION in bonds all related to the landfill. Ellis, Smith and Calsolaro voted against every ordinance except the one that was for money for restoration to original Pine Bush of the area where the mobile home park is located.  A sad state for Albany taxpayers (Scalzo was a no-show so the votes were all 11 - 3).

FYI:  Originally we were not going to vote on the bonds this week, but after Glen Casey came in a little late for Youth In Government night, the Mayor told Jim Sano to call for the votes now that Casey was there.  I only know this because I overheard [The Mayor give Sano] his instructions.

One good thing about the votes, I was applauded, and the good thing is not that I was applauded, but that the argument I made against bonding away our future and placing the debt on our kids' backs was not the way to go was seen by the parents as the correct argument.  I think people are more fully seeing the fiscal hell hole JJ is sending us into.

-Dominick Calsolaro

Thanks to both Dan and Lynne (none / 0) (#8)
by Jim Travers on Tue May 20, 2008 at 10:22:13 AM EST
As noted, Save The Pine Bush has been offering advise garnered from experts in state of the art waste disposal and recycling technologies dicovered through extensive research on the subject since 2005.

I, along with other members of Selkirk, Coeymans, Ravena Against Pollution (SCRAP) have been researching this issue since 1994.

It was then that I first advised the mayor about the problems he would face should he pursue the Coeymans land acquisition.

The city at that time had spent less than half a million dollars of your tax dollars towards the lands purchase. Today, the city has spent closer to if not exceeding 10 Million dollars for the Coeymans land, when one figures in the cost of lawers and consultants. Regardless, it's much more than the reported 5.2 Million often cited.

I wasn't only complaining because it was a NIMBY issue, but also because it would be a huge waste of money on a project that was doomed to fail from the start because of its location.

If the city had lawfully followed SEQRA, this should have been discovered long before a dime was spent on the Coeymans land.

The same holds true today with the Convention Center. They are ignoring the law and pressing ahead.

It is well past time to take back control of our reckless and fiscally irresponsible government officials and put it into the responsible hands of We The People.

Besides Patacki & Bruno, who is Jennings listening to? Certainly not the people who elected him, that's for sure.

Albany's budget director lives in Clifton Park.... (none / 0) (#11)
by hawkny on Tue May 20, 2008 at 07:07:09 PM EST
It figures!

Stupid Is as Stupid Does | 11 comments (11 topical, 0 hidden)
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