Hi all...
Fact: A year ago Co. Leg. Chair Roger Higgins led the call for accountability at our county's RRA; we Dems are the ones who first moved a year ago to assign county funding for the Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency to a special escrow account so they would get as little money as possible-- and even in July Higgins &Dems led charge calling for NYS Budget Authorties Office to look into RRA:
http://dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2009/07/sundays-pok-journal-front-page-even.html .
[funny, isn't it, how Steinhaus year later pulling copycat move re: funding for RRA-- that Dealy criticized!]
[so funny I almost forgot to laugh]
Shame on Poughkeepsie Journal for editorial today blaming Dems; we've been leading the way on this:
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20091108/OPINION01/911080312/Editorial--Bring-accountability-to-county-trash-agency .
Not outraged?...Sorry-- you're not payin' attention...(obvious by now PoJo workin' for the clampdown)...
[like Mr. Strummer said-- channel that anger people-- write letterstoeditor@poughkeepsiejournal.com!]
Pass it on...
Joel
242-3571/876-2488
joeltyner@earthlink.net
[sadly, Pok. Journal outed itself long ago enabling, facilitating personal attacks on Higgins' personal life; PoJo now clearly feelin' its oats having ushered back in G.O.P. majority-- hold 'em accountable, folks!]
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Recall-- literally TEN YEARS AGO in 1999 I exposed in a column I wrote in the Taconic Papers how the DCRRA was literally flushing $53 million down the drain refinancing the county incinerator without any RFP or competitive bidding process-- and since even before that have been pushing to end de-facto pay-to-play/corruption in county government re: county contracts and donations; join over 50 other Dutchess residents signed on to http://www.petitiononline.com/cleangov for action; see: http://dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2009/08/re-pay-to-play-in-dutchess-county-brand.html ...
Again-- I personally have LONG called for beefed up enforcement when it comes to waste management in Dutchess County; recall-- back in January 2008 I started my http://www.petitiononline.com/newideas petition calling this citing Westchester's efforts: "County Beefing Up Enforcement of Recycling Rules" [11/29/07] http://larchmontgazette.com/2007/articles/20071129recycling.html ...
All this year I've helped lead investigation into the DCRRA with the Green Ribbon Solid Waste Management Task Force; join 37 already on board my http://www.petitiononline.com/zeroyes effort!...
[This past Thursday I did my best to get my resolution passed out of our County Legislature's Environmental Committee (209354)-- for our Green Ribbon Solid Waste Management recommendations to be made real-- but it didn't pass out of committee, unfortunately; see text here:
http://www.dutchessny.gov/CountyGov/Departments/Legislature/ResolutionsPDF/209354.pdf ; Green Ribbon report here-- http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/assets/pdf/BK142669916.PDF -- pass it on!]
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Recall below sent out to this list Oct. 29th (I set up mtg./forum re: RRA the week earlier)...
[unfortunately Calogero, Akeley, Wozniak, Anderson all refused to come to speak on this issue-- why?]
Re: RRA-- join Capt. Paul Piastro of County Sheriff's office tonite 7 pm with me for forum!...
Just thought I'd remind y'all (recall previous emails on this last week) that you're all cordially invited to join me for a forum tonight 7 pm in the Legislative Chambers on the sixth floor of our County Office Building at 22 Market Street in Poughkeepsie-- to try to get to the bottom of all the issues re: DCRRA!...
[unfortunately DCRRA Ex. Dir. William Calogero and Dutchess County Attorney Ron Wozniak both told me recently they would not attend this...(?!?)...and Dutchess County Solid Waste Planning Commissioner Roger Akeley hasn't even responded to my repeated emails and calls inviting him to this]
However, Dutchess County Sheriff Adrian "Butch" Anderson is sending Capt. Paul Piastro to represent the Dutchess County Sheriff's office tonight at this meeting-- so-- if you can, please join us for this!...
[note-- even Piastro didn't show up for this Oct. 29th; why?]
Personally, I firmly believe that the taxpayers of Dutchess County want us in the Co. Leg. to take a good long look and get to the bottom of how literally millions of our tax dollars have been wasted on DCRRA contracts without competitive bidding, the massive overbudgeting at DCRRA year after year, the exorbitant cost of our county incinerator (46% higher than average processing-per-ton cost for our region), how the DCRRA has sat silently by as unlicensed waste hauling has run rampant for years with county law going unenforced, and how the DCRRA has facilitated a de-facto monopoly on waste hauling for one company completely dominating the local market, and how even public records from our Board of Elections prove that pay-to-play conflicts of interest are rampant-- as Royal Carting, after giving large campaign donations, has long gotten bigger breaks on their tipping fees-- it's all wrong in so many ways; the status quo cannot hold; the current situation is unsustainable...
Recall this from the front page of Oct. 19th Poughkeepsie Journal:
"Trash-Pickup Competition Is Rare in Dutchess County: Royal Carting Dominates: Other Companies Cry Foul" by Mary Beth Pfeiffer
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20091019/NEWS01/91016011
Recall Oct. 18th article too-- "No License? No Problem for Trash Haulers" by Mary Beth Pfeiffer
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20091018/NEWS01/91016009/Dutchess-trash-hauling-licensing-lax&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL .
[recall other Pok. Journal special reports: "Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency (pt.'s I, II, III)"
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/section/special&template=2col ]
As always-- help get my colleagues on board; email them countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us...
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Ten Questions Dutchess County Taxpayers Have a Right to Have Answered ASAP Re: DCRRA...
1. Why has Dutchess County unfairly helped put into place a de-facto monopoly on waste hauling with big discounts for Royal-- when other facilities offer discounts in more equitable and transparent ways?
[83% of the trash dumped at our county incinerator is delivered there by Royal Carting-- a company that gets to do this at a rate 8% less than other haulers in the county-- see today's Poughkeepsie Journal.]
2. Why has Dutchess County allowed pay to play to run rampant, empowering the biggest waste hauler in the county, Royal Carting's founder and owner Emil Panichi and his wife Emily to give the County Executive $12,000 in campaign donations since 2005-- more than any other individuals? [Even the Poughkeepsie Journal has twice in last decade published scathing editorials calling on Dutchess County to follow the good example of Rockland County and enact a $100 limit on campaign donations to county officials and candidates from companies like Royal who have contracts with the county.]
3. Why is it that the very waste hauler (Riccelli Enterprises) hired by the Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency to take away its ash hasn't even been licensed by Dutchess County itself?
4. Why is it that Dutchess County has issued only one citation for unlicensed waste hauling since 2005, even though DCRRA Ex. Dir. William Calogero himself has taken over 100 pictures of this going on?
5. Why is it that Dutchess County has collected only $400 in fines for illegal carting since 2005-- while
Westchester County, with roughly three times our county's population, nets $100,000 to $200,000 annually this way-- with (unlike Dutchess) a staff of enforcement agents it uses to catch offenders through garbage station records?
6. Why is it that Dutchess County, with literally dozens of unlicensed waste haulers carting construction debris, has the lowest rate of licensed carters in five local counties-- with only one-fourth the number of licensed waste haulers per capita that Westchester has, and half the number per capita that Ulster and Orange counties have, per population?
7. Why does Dutchess County make it so hard for seemingly legitimate waste haulers to be licensed here?
8. Why is it that the DCRRA has the highest per-ton processing cost of 14 incinerators in the region-- 46% higher than average-- with a subsidy from county taxpayers this year projected to be $6.3 million (compared to $1.1 million in 2001)?
9. Why is it that millions of our county tax dollars in DCRRA contracts have been awarded without competitive bidding (requests for proposals) in violation of the DCRRA's state-mandated policy-- including roofing work, long-term arrangements with lawyers, auditors, and engineers, and the contract to operate the incinerator?
10. Why is it that the last six Dutchess County budgets have included literally $5.4 million more in subsidies than the DCRRA has actually used?
[questions #3 through #10 are taken literally from the front page of yesterday's Poughkeepsie Journal]
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From http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20091019/NEWS01/91016011 ...
Trash-pickup competition is rare in Dutchess County: Royal Carting dominates; other companies cry foul
OCTOBER 19, 2009 Poughkeepsie Journal by Mary Beth Pfeiffer
Every day scores of trucks from Royal Carting Service of Hopewell Junction unload trash at the Dutchess County burn plant in the Town of Poughkeepsie, paying a fee to dump that is 8 percent below the going rate.
And though the burn plant has foundered-- the result, a legislative task force says, of mismanagement-- Royal has soared. Begun with one truck in 1955, the company now has 200 employees and 30,000 customers in the mid-Hudson Valley. In Dutchess, it controls an estimated 80 to 85 percent of the market, servicing most schools, businesses, and homes that have collection (some under a subsidiary, Welsh Sanitation). As Millbrook's deputy village clerk, Camille Prehatney, put it, "I'm not even sure there's any other company that does pickup."
Royal's founder and owner Emil Panichi and his wife, Emily, gave County Executive William Steinhaus $12,000 in campaign donations since 2005-- more than any other individuals, while giving nothing to county Democrats or members of the Legislature. (Only one corporate donor, Meyer Contracting Corp. of Pleasant Valley, gave more to Steinhaus than the Panichis, $15,300.)
Under its deal with the Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency, Royal Carting pays $73.75 to dump a ton of trash-- compared to $80 charged to other commercial haulers and $79 to the City of Poughkeepsie. (Royal was also paid $1.1 million in 2008 under a five-year contract to remove ash from the plant.)
The year-round discount-- under which the carter guarantees delivery of 115,000 tons of trash-- is part of a special contractual agreement for Royal alone; no formal policy exists as to when other carters might qualify. While the deal assures the plant has enough trash to keep running, it also offers a significant advantage-- financed partly by taxpayers-- to what is the undisputed dominant player in a market already short of competition.
The problem, haulers and even an agency board member said, is how the discount is administered: to one company and with no established guidelines as to when others may qualify. (The agency occasionally offers seasonal discounts, as in August, when trash production lagged, and three companies responded.)
R. Stephen Lynch [a Millbrook resident], an agency board member and critic, said the agency should provide discounts in a more equitable way, such as by posting a specific policy on a Web site. "There's fair ways to offer volume discounts and unfair ways," he said. "What they do is not transparent."
The Hudson Falls trash plant, which Lynch's waste-consulting company manages, offers discounts to carters who deliver at least 667 tons monthly under six-month to three-year contracts in an attempt to attract waste from a variety of sources. The Poughkeepsie trash plant, meanwhile, is dependent on Royal for 83 percent of its lifeblood: trash.
"They're certainly giving them an opportunity that they are not giving other people," David Dyal, owner of Dyal Roll Off Inc. of LaGrangeville, said of Royal's arrangement, echoing other haulers. "You would think that the county would operate a level playing field"...
Royal Carting is the widely acknowledged trash-hauling powerhouse of Dutchess County, a status it has achieved through competitive prices, a penchant for buying out other carters and what haulers and residents say are lucrative offers to hold on to wavering customers. In question is whether Royal's favorable deal at a facility that gets millions in county subsidies every year has helped to cement the company's dominant position in the county-- at the expense of other competitors.
"What the county did for years, they kept competition out, they built up one company and now they have to bow down to that one company," said one small hauler who asked not to be named for fear of offending the agency, which processes haulers' licenses. "If everybody was paying the same rate and everybody could compete, you'd have more garbage coming into the county."
Indeed, the scramble for trash-- in a market awash in cheap alternatives at upstate and Pennsylvania landfills-- is at the heart of the Royal deal, which dates to 1998...At the same time, the facility is in difficult financial straits, carrying $49 million in debt, facing a multi-million dollar annual deficit and, the Journal has previously reported, costing more to process a ton of trash than 13 other plants in the region.
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"No License? No Problem for Trash Haulers"
County Enforcement Lax; Agency Hires Unlicensed Firm
Poughkeepise Journal October 18, 2009 by Mary Beth Pfeiffer
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20091018/NEWS01/91016009/Dutchess-trash-hauling-licensing-lax&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL
For the last 21 months, 18-wheel tractor-trailers have regularly left Dutchess County's trash-burning plant in the Town of Poughkeepsie filled with thousands of tons of ash hauled by a company without a county license to carry waste.
The case of the trucker, Riccelli Enterprises, is perhaps the most dramatic example of a Dutchess County waste hauling law that is poorly enforced by county solid waste officials, flouted by many carters and-- in this instance-- ignored even by the Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency, the county's chief waste manager, a Poughkeepsie Journal investigation of trash licensing found.
Ironically, the agency-- which runs the burn plant and awarded the $600,000-a-year Riccelli contract in late 2007-- is also responsible for processing haulers' licenses under a statute that deems it "unlawful for any private hauler" to pick up or dispose of waste in Dutchess County without a license.
Riccelli, of North Syracuse, declined to return numerous calls for this article. The company applied in July 2008 for a license, but it still has not been granted-- putting Riccelli in league with other unlicensed carriers in the county.
The Journal's findings come at a critical juncture for the management of trash in Dutchess.
A task force appointed by the Democrat-controlled county Legislature concluded recently that the agency was mismanaged and said its multi-million-dollar annual subsidy-- and possibly the trash agency itself-- should be eliminated.
The agency countered with its own report advocating a new property tax to support operations, an expanded burn plant, and most significantly, the adoption of a "flow control" law that would put the agency in charge of all 250,000 tons of waste produced in the county, in addition to the 150,000 tons processed at the burn plant.
Troll the roads of Dutchess and you will see trucks and roll-off containers bearing the names of companies like CRP Sanitation, Marangi Disposal, AAA Carting, and many others that aren't on the county's list of 14 licensed carters. Significantly, licensing procedures assure that haulers are well insured-- including carrying liability protection for the county-- and, moreover, that they undergo background checks to verify they have no links to organized crime. The Journal found no evidence of such ties, but did find:
-- Dozens of unlicensed operators haul thousands of tons of waste in Dutchess each year without the requisite checks of their background and financing necessary to obtain a two-year haulers' license.
-- These haulers, unlike Riccelli, mostly carry waste from business and household renovation and construction, called C & D or construction and demolition debris.
-- While the licensing process is meant to keep criminal operators out of the industry, it may also unwittingly discourage legitimate operators because of the process' length, expense, and demands for information.
"This license process has been overwhelming, burdensome, and outright exhausting," said Christopher Larkin, owner of Nieco Container Corp. of Marlboro, who has tried for more than four years to get a Dutchess haulers' license, a process that cost him $6,400 in application fees and $70,000 in legal bills. (He is operating under a temporary license.)
Three haulers said it was faster and easier to get gun permits, which also require criminal background checks, that it was to get a trash haulers' permit in Dutchess County.
County officials said that the process to become licensed, however lengthy, was necessary to cull "possible criminal elements in the solid waste industry."
"The licensing process is designed to ensure that all carters who operate in Dutchess County are held to the same set of standards," said Senior County Attorney Carol Bogle in written response to Journal questions. She denied charges by several frustrated carters who have come to believe that the county process is intended to keep down competition among licensed haulers-- a belief fostered by a rigorous permit review at one end of the system and little enforcement at the other.
Though unlicensed hauling is common-- William Calogero, the trash agency's director, has taken more than 100 photographs-- the county issued just one citation for it since 2005, county records show, to CRP. That irks haulers who have paid thousands in licensing fees and insurance.
"It's brutal for anyone who's in Dutchess County," said Andrew Dyal, former owner of Dyal Carting of Poughkeepsie. "You go through the proper channels and do what you're supposed to do to get a permit and you have all these guys come from out of town, and there's no enforcement."
"The guy...on the sneak who's not paying taxes, not licensed, maybe not insured-- he's going to do it cheaper than me," said Jack Hess, owner of Hess Hauling of Wappingers Falls, a small licensed carter in central and southern Dutchess.
Companies whose containers were photographed by the Journal had varying responses.
Officials of AAA, of Peekskill, and Marangi, of Valley Cottage, Rockland County, said they would seek a license; Ronald Carbone, an official of CRP, of Elmsford, Westchester County, said the company believed it was OK to work under another company's license; a county attorney said it was not.
Calogero, the trash agency head who oversees the county burn plant, blamed the county for poor enforcement.
"The enforcement really isn't being done," he said. "County government has not gotten heavily enough behind it....It's not my responsibility," he added.
Asked why, in view of these complaints, the agency itself would hire a hauler without a county license, he explained that ash has a "beneficial use" as cover for trash landfills, making it a "gray area" that might not need a trash-hauling license. He acknowledged, however, "The rules and regulations do not make that point clear." (Riccelli does have a state license to transport waste.)
The agency and county jointly review applications for licenses to haul trash, which are ultimately granted by Roger Akeley, the county's planning commissioner, and, for the past several years, acting solid waste commissioner. Under county law, enforcement "shall be the responsibility of the commissioner of solid waste management." Akeley, through the county attorney, declined an interview.
Enforcement Goals
County officials said they were working to beef up enforcement. About 30 letters have been sent since 2006 advising unlicensed haulers to apply for permits, and several stakeouts were conducted in the last year to catch offenders. According to Bogle, the senior county attorney, enforcement is difficult because "the law enforcement officer...must witness an unlicensed carter in the act of transporting or delivering solid waste to a solid waste facility"-- something Dutchess rarely does.
Since 2005, the county has collected just $400 in fines for illegal carting; by contrast, Westchester County, with about three times Dutchess' population, nets $100,000 to $200,000 annually. Unlike Dutchess, it has a staff of enforcement agents and catches offenders through garbage station records, among other things.
Dutchess County's licensing regulations, which stem from legislation passed in 1984, require that truck operators have good driving records, vehicles are registered and companies carry adequate insurance to protect themselves, their employees and, moreover, the county and agency from claims.
But the regulations have an equally important mission: to attest to the applicant's "character and fitness" to haul waste.
Organized crime families have historically been implicated in New York in attempts to divide control of the trash market and fix prices, and the Journal found no evidence that organized crime has infiltrated the industry here. (The then-general manager of CRP was convicted of conspiring to violate federal racketeering laws in a price-fixing case in 2006 but the company continues to be licensed in Westchester.) But nor have many of the unlicensed participants undergone background checks that might reveal such ties.
The licensing procedure involves two-to-three-month probes by private investigators, delving into the financial, personal, and criminal histories of applicants. The process costs carters several thousand dollars, depending on how many company principals must be investigated, and often raises issues that lead to further investigation.
"It really, really took a long time-- months, months, months," said Rita Trocino, vice president of Recycle Depot, a hauling and debris-recycling center in the Town of Poughkeepsie who paid $2000 for her license.
The question is whether the county has made the review process so onerous as to steer haulers-- and competition-- away.
Since 2005, 12 hauling companies failed to finish the license application, two withdrew completed applications, and three did not respond to county inquiries on their applications, according to county records. Thirteen were approved.
Indeed, the county, which currently has 14 licensed haulers, has many fewer per capita than other local counties. Orange and Ulster have about twice the rate per capita (and Ulster doesn't license roll-off companies as in Dutchess) while Westchester, with a similarly rigorous review process, has four times as many per population.
Marangi Disposal, which services local Kmarts and Home Depots, has operated here without a license for 10 years, its president, Michael Marangi, acknowledged. "It's almost impossible to get a license," he said.
Larkin, the hauler who has waited more than four years for a full license was asked for voluminous amounts of information including bank records, deposit slips, cancelled checks, tax returns, W-2 forms, stockholder information-- even his sister's marital status.
He acknowledged that he worked for men who, according to court records, were subsequently barred from the waste industry in New York City for organized crime ties; he was 16 when he started collecting trash in the Bronx and said such associations come with the business. His sister's (now ex-) husband, who was also in the field, was indicted in 1994 for racketeering and sent to prison, he acknowledged. But the Town of Poughkeepsie resident maintains that there is nothing in his background to suggest criminality-- he obtained a Westchester County haulers' license in 2005 and 2007 and also has a pistol permit, both requiring background checks.
County Concerns
Bogle, the county attorney, acknowledged the case's twists and turns, which she said were rooted in "concerns about the information that had been provided in connection with this application." Larkin sued the county and eventually had to sell his residential route of 450 customers-- even though a judge ruled he had shown "a likelihood of ultimate success on the merits" at trial. He has been offered a conditional license which would require him, among many other things, to allow the county to view his customer lists.
"They have shut the door on this entrepreneur," Larkin said, noting that his problems began when he sought to change his license from temporary to permanent and told county officials he intended to expand from roll-off services to weekly residential pick-up. "This whole thing was done to deter other people from coming in here."
An official of County Waste of Clifton Park, N.Y., expressed a similar sentiment. The company, with 191,000 customers in 13 New York counties, abandoned a yearlong attempt in 2007 to get a license after numerous inexplicable delays.
"It's like would you go and play a poker game if you knew that the deck of cards were fixed?" said Jerry Cifor, a principal in the company. "It's difficult to get a hauler's permit (in Dutchess). They were you down to nothing...I've been in the industry for 25 years, and I've never seen anything like it before."
The company is under investigation by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for alleged fraud in connection with dumping at a Colonie landfill. A County Waste spokesman, Saleem Cheeks, said the probe began after County Waste withdrew its Dutchess application.
In response to such charges, Bogle said the county was just doing its job: "The licensing process is...not designed to limit competition or discourage haulers."
James Constantino, general counsel for Royal Carting Service of Hopewell Junction, the county's largest licensed hauler, defended the county's process. "The fact is that licensing does not unfairly impact legitimate carters from competing," he wrote in a statement. "On the other hand, a carter that is under criminal investigation or is unable to meet the minimum insurance standards would likely take the position that the licensing process would inhibit its ability to compete."
He said there was no lack of competition here when unlicensed haulers were considered. Some of them, he said, offered scheduled pickup; aside from Marangi, which acknowledged five commercial accounts, the Journal could not find examples of unlicensed haulers providing regular collection.
At least one hauler said the licensing process worked well. "We've had a pretty smooth transition with getting a license," said Hans Taylor of Taylor Recycling of Montgomery. The company's permit expired last December, however; county officials say the company has not completed necessary paperwork to renew while Taylor says everything has been submitted.
Meanwhile, the county promises to take steps to crack down on unlicensed haulers.
"The county has increased its enforcement efforts over the past year and is continuing to review its enforcement procedures and assigned resources for 2010," Bogle said.
Haulers would welcome the development.
"We really go out of our way to make sure there's no illegal things being dumped into the trash and roll-off containers," said Hess, the Wappingers Falls carter. "You get these other guys...they come in, they do what they want."
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