Professional Documents
Culture Documents
While Mahan boasts of assurances of performance in the lease contract, ultimately those assurances are only as good as Waste Connections ability to remain financially stable over the next nearly three decades. With some of the biggest and strongest corporations in the United States having failed in the recent past, 25 years is a long commitment for any company to remain viable. If anything goes wrong, Colonie will be left holding the bag for closing costs and other expenses. Town Board member Dan Dustin, a certified public accountant, demonstrated that the landfill deal actually loses money for the Town over the life of the lease agreement noting that payments on outstanding bonds for the landfill and the costs for retaining the Towns landfill staff in other parts of the Town will drive future unfunded costs. Sheehan also reiterated some of the worst parts of the landfill deal: The Towns own engineering firm places the potential value of the landfill at between $300 and $600 million while the lease contract will only bring the Town about $70 million over 25 years with slightly more if the landfill expands The Town has agreed to consider using its eminent domain powers to seize private land around the landfill at the suggestion of the private contractor, to allow the private contractor to further expand the landfill beyond its current borders. The Town has not capped tipping fees for the landfill as Mahan has said, but instead has only capped the annual increases in such fees, while also leaving major loopholes to increase fees above these caps. There is nothing to stop the private contractor from increasing tipping fees for garbage each year for the 25 year life of the lease. The lease does not prevent waste being brought in from out of state, but only prohibits waste being brought in from a handful of east coast cities. The Town has transferred all public landfill employees, formerly funded by the landfill, to other parts of the Town budget, shifting their cost onto taxpayers and leaving the employees with uncertainty about their futures. The Town retains no on-going supervision or observer at the landfill. The Towns limited oversight comes from a request to review the contractors books during normal business hours. The contractor is not obligated to develop operating reports to the Town but instead must only give the Town copies of reports that will be filed with state officials. ### For more information on Denise Sheehan, please visit her website.