Without rehashing a long, volatile history, the bottom line is the county legislature authorized the RRA to deal in a coordinated fashion with the county’s solid waste, though its plan to create a county landfill never came to fruition, and — this is no small item — to provide support to close the numerous illegal dumps around the county properly.
It has been an expensive proposition. RRA debt stands at about $30 million, versus assets of less than $7 million. The operation cost taxpayers some $1.2 million this year and is projected to have a deficit of $2.4 million in 2013.
Prospects going forward are not positive. The RRA has apparently fallen behind the technology curve and will be hard-pressed to compete with private haulers. Greater subsidies from the county will be the logical consequence of a declining revenue stream.
The RRA’s response has been to press the legislature to institute “flow control,” whereby all county garbage would be routed through the agency, at considerable extra cost to consumers. Or the county could just shut down the operation and leave it to the private sector. I suspect the cash-strapped executive, again accusing the legislature of “doing nothing” in regard to the one segment of government it controls, is headed in that direction.
Either way, the county is on the hook for some $30 million in debt. Policymakers are now debating whether it will cost less in the long run to service the debt and the operation with higher county subsidies, or to shut it down and refinance the debt at currently historic rates. The county executive will have those numbers in hand when he presents his 2013 budget in October.
Charter chatter
The executive-dominated Ulster County Charter Review Commission generally gets good marks for dedication and diligence, less for perceived independence. Under the 2006 charter, five members of the charter review commission are appointed by the executive and two each by legislative leaders. At the least, the Democratic executive had five votes on the commission, likely seven.
Generally speaking, the executive views the charter, which created his job, as written in stone. While advancing a few changes in his self-interest, he considers changes by others as “undermining” the charter form of government.
The mostly minor 20 revisions adopted by the charter commission last spring were formally reviewed by the legislature’s laws and rules committee last week. The Republican-dominated committee, by a 6-1 vote, rejected three recommendations advanced by Hein via the commission: that the executive be given subpoena power, like the comptroller and the legislature itself; that the legislature have no say on future reapportionment, other than naming some of its members; and that, in the event of an executive leaving office, though obviously not by death, the executive be allowed to appoint his successor to a term of at least 180 days.
This rare display of legislative backbone apparently sent the seldom-challenged executive into orbit. Mess with anything the charter commission recommended, he declared, and he will veto the legislation. I find this a curious position from a man publicly committed to the war against bullying.
It takes 16 votes in the 12-11 Republican legislature to override an executive veto. Republicans predict that with a little help from their friends, they can do it. Given the executive’s ability to pick off legislators like ducks in a shooting gallery, that outcome is by no means guaranteed.
There are a couple of issues here.
First of all, the review commission is an appointed agency. To advocate the ascendance of non-elected officials over elected officials is clearly undemocratic.
The legislators have a responsibility, as elected officials, to review the work of this commission and if wanting, in the opinion of the legislature, change it.
These are the larger issues. Whether the executive is given subpoena power, unlike any other chief executive, is a serious matter, especially in a demonstratively litigious administration. That the original (2006) charter commission — the one Hein so reveres — chose not to grant that power is telling.
It appears that Hein is a forward thinker, and Gallo is not!
Evidence Hein is no forward thinker: 1)He “fixed” something that was never broken(ie, Golden Hill HealthCare Facility) by ditching it, with long term consequences of higher costs in a system out of control with costs already; 2)He is in NYC and Albany seemingly more than he is in Ulster County and doesn’t know anything–or have any clue(which everyone ELSE WOULD KNOW IF the media did its job on that) about the day to day operations of Ulster County(neither does the professional managers he has under hire in his office, who can’t stop from stumbling over themselves in trying to deal with any bungling in any dept.–“more on that later”), so Mr. Hein has obviously paid NO attention there). He wants everyone to believe that since he is fighting for the county on water issues his neglect of the other items listed ought be viewed as “water over the DAM.” I view it as more “a brain waterlogged from a sense of his own power.”
Further, Gallo only seemed so outgunned and outwitted on these issues if you are a media watcher or so stuck on yourself in the media you are hopeless;indeed, the media blew it up to the level of some World War, which it was not. Gallo was RIGHT to criticize this man Hein (who is so full of hubris from his ditching of Golden Hill and his seeming unbroken string of victories), on the issue of Sophie Finn School, and has less egg on his face than does Hein on that one(he merely–and additionally— has fewer SMILES on his face for a photo op–but only those in the media literally forever seem to care about that one at least overtly either).
Mr. Reynolds, maybe it is about time you hightailed it out of town in Mr. Rooney’s nonexistent F-105–you could try to reach the sound barrier in so doing….(ok retirement in Florida might be a suitable substitute) and let those of us with any actual information on the topic your blather tries to pass off as the last and definitive word fill in for your perennial covering of your ignorance with your supposedly huge level of cleverness that everyone is supposed to be bowled over by and kowtow to. [And if that’s a run-on sentence, I don’t care:Mother Dorothy Robinson(they since became known as “Sisters”) was known to actually side with me moreso overall in the old days than say, Mr. Sottile(who would of course prefer to posit and present the opposite), and I claim “an academic exemption” from overcriticism on that point from HER.(seems Reynolds has already granted Sottile “a bungling exemption” himself). Whether Cardinal Dolan will grant HER the privilege of doing so–or any other Nun– of course remains, well, his prerogative, “per the usual power flow”].
” Gore Vidal, R.I.P. “