Jerry Jennings Plays Hide and No Speak


By DIA, Section News
Posted on Thu Mar 19, 2009 at 04:55:53 AM EST

So, Mayor Jennings has been working on getting a new landfill and or landfill expansions for fourteen years. He has spent millions of your dollars in this pursuit. He has failed. He has told you that if this landfill expansion doesn't happen that the city is financially ruined and no one will want to be mayor of this city. So what did he have to say in this time of crisis when we learned that there would be no dump expansion?

Nothing.

I guess he wanted to leave that to the person who is responsible for managing this, DGS Commissioner Nick D'Antonio. What did Commissioner D'Antonio have to say about how he has failed the people of Albany?

Nothing.

Ok. Ok. We all realize that D'Antonio isn't really the commissioner. Sure he gets paid the salary but the old commissioner, Bill Bruce, who you pay a lot of money to as a consultant, is the guy still running the show. Just another scam to relieve you of more tax dollars. Put the mayor's buddy in one of the most important jobs in the city and pay other people to try to do the work. The other people have failed as well. So what does our high priced consultant Bill Bruce have to say about this?

Nothing. Failure pays well.

Who will comment on this failure? Oh look, it is a representative from the Mayor's re-election finance committee Clough Harbor. You elected them right?
Mayor Jerry Jennings has pushed hard for expansion, saying the city faces a financial crisis without the $13 million it gets in trash fees from outsiders each year.

"It's not financially viable to make the infrastructure investment for just 21/2 years for landfill capacity," said Frank LaVardera, vice president at Clough Harbor & Associates.
Where is Mayor Jennings? At an undisclosed location? We've got a city to run here. We've got a financial crisis, a total lack of leadership in the APD, a several million dollar scam with parking tickets and a violent crime problem. Where in the world is Jerry Jennings?

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Jerry Jennings Plays Hide and No Speak | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 hidden)
No other plans (none / 0) (#1)
by albany layman on Thu Mar 19, 2009 at 07:56:56 AM EST
From the article:

EPA also is pushing a scaled-back option, and objected to the city plan in a Feb. 12 letter to the corps that noted the city has failed to consider paying to truck its garbage to other landfills with decades of capacity rather than expanding into the Pine Bush.

Failed to consider other options.  This is: not surprising; unbelievably bad management; irresponsible stewardship of the land; etc., etc.

Maybe someday we will know exactly how much cash is sloshing around, and to who, that would lead to desperate planning towards an unsustainable goal.  

yup (none / 0) (#2)
by DIA on Thu Mar 19, 2009 at 09:32:54 AM EST
there certainly is some other motivation than just doing what is best for the city of albany

and if there isn't, then jerry and his boys are just plain stupid and incapable of solving a problem that they have known about for 16 years.

take your pick.  Stupid or corrupt.  

and (none / 0) (#3)
by DIA on Thu Mar 19, 2009 at 09:39:31 AM EST
we should keep in mind this landfill filled up years before it was supposed to.  

how did that happen?

One way it could happen would be if people were allowed to dump for free like they were in Colonie.   I'm open to hearing about other ways it could've happened.  If everyone who paid dumped there paid the full fees, where are those several extra years worth of revenues.  At $13 million a year in fees we should have an extra $40-$50 milllion.   Jerry?  Betty?  Show me the money.

Explain This! (none / 0) (#4)
by A Muse on Thu Mar 19, 2009 at 10:30:26 AM EST
It takes 4 City of Albany workers to make the rounds in a shiny new garbage truck to pick up recycle bags.  On Thursday the 18, of March, three fellows in the cab and one fellow putting the bags in the truck.  You would think they were getting time and a half - they were working so slow.  So for each truck the City has it can fire 2 employees.  The others maybe were there to pick up heavy metal and take it for redemption.
 

Explain This! (none / 0) (#5)
by A Muse on Thu Mar 19, 2009 at 10:34:17 AM EST
It takes 4 City of Albany workers to make the rounds in a shiny new garbage truck to pick up recycle bags.  On Wednesday the 18th, of March, three DPW employees riding in the cab and one fellow putting the bags in the truck making rounds through the City.  You would think they were getting time and a half - they were working so slow.  So for each truck the City has it can fire 2 employees.  The others maybe were there to pick up heavy metal and take it for redemption.  Taxpayer rip-off.
 

Get Healthy - diet beer (none / 0) (#6)
by A Muse on Thu Mar 19, 2009 at 11:24:13 AM EST
Maybe if Jerry walked a few times through the Pine Bush he might see the benefit of it in attracting business, industry and home purchasers to Albany.  In addition, he might shed a few pounds and look better in his Speedo.  I heard someone mistook him for a whale the last time his feet touched sand.  It's just a joke Champ I know you are big boned.

He Has Seen The Pine Bush (none / 0) (#9)
by Dan Van Riper on Fri Mar 20, 2009 at 07:07:19 AM EST

A little history:  Jennings broke with the old political machine (then run by T. Whalen) in the early 1990s.  Why?  Because He dared to vote against a spot zoning proposal ordered by Whalen to "develop" some important piece of Pine Bush land. Jennings actually stood up in the Common Council and declared that the Pine Bush is a treasure that ought to be preserved.  And He invited the rest of the Common Council to to spend a few hours walking in the Pine Bush like he had recently done.

In retaliation for not obeying orders, Whalen ordered the machine to challenge Jennings' qualifying petitions for re-election.  Of course, like all machine boys' petitions, Jennings' qualifying petitions were fraudulent documents, full of pages written in the same handwriting and signed by people who never saw the petition,  The petitions were easy to dispose of.

Jennings then issued rubber stamps with his name on the rubber to the voters of his ward.  They swept him back into office as an independent in the general election in November, the first non Democrat since Dan O'Connell was a baby. (Corey Ellis was just following precedent when he took his race to November.)

Save the Pine Bush gave Jennings a plaque in appreciation, a beautiful up close photo of the Karner Blue butterfly in a wooden frame with an engraved plate below.  I noted at the time that Jennings seemed embarrassed when we gave it to him.  And SPB worked to get Him elected, without which support He probably would have lost.

Within the first few months it became clear that we had elected a monster who intended to wreck our natural treasure.  And we never learned what happened to the award which he never put on display after the election.  I have always assumed that He threw it cackling into the nearest receptacle and it is now crushed underneath the mountain of waste on top of the Pine Bush that is Jennings' legacy.

[ Parent ]

Nothing to say? (none / 0) (#7)
by TerryONeillEsq on Thu Mar 19, 2009 at 01:01:23 PM EST
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Oceania/photo155816.htm

There's a simple explanation... (none / 0) (#8)
by Jim Travers on Thu Mar 19, 2009 at 09:13:59 PM EST
Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.
~ Machiavelli
Jerry Jennings Plays Hide and No Speak | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 hidden)
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