“Carbone [a Supreme Court decision of the early 1990s banning flow control] is the law of the land. Oneida-Herkimer [a state court decision within the last five years allowing flow control] is a narrow exception. There may be grounds…”
Instead, Changaris suggested a “three- or four-legged stool” partnership arrangement with the private haulers, (who, he pointed out in a separate interview, make a profit in the industry, while the county loses money at it), the county and the RRA. “We think you can take care of the debt and have good solid waste policies without flow control.”
Supporting the law was former Kingston alderman and current RRA board member Charlie Landi, who pointed out that “the deficits and debt were used to close illegal dumps. Flow control will eliminate the $2 million net service fee,” and said “the original Solid Waste Management agreement called for flow control. It if fails, the RRA will survive, but be more dependent on the county’s net service fee.”
Dare Thompson, representing the League of Women Voters, also believes that the county should go forward with the law. “Flow control creates a fairer playing field for all the haulers,” she said. “You can undo this legislation if you don’t like it. We suggest you try it.”
Kingston’s Abel Garraghan, who toiled in the solid waste business for many a year, urged the county to come up with something sustainable.
A landfill? Where?
Following from the flow control discussion, perhaps inevitably, is the suggestion that Ulster create its own landfill. Such a suggestion led to a battle royal in Ulster back in the early 1990s, as the RRA sought to create such a facility at Winston Farm in Saugerties, just off the Thruway. The proposal was ultimately defeated, and the RRA began exporting its trash.
“The RRA was created for a county landfill. We already have flow control…it’s called economic flow control,” said town of Rochester supervisor Carl Chipman. “The current situation is untenable. We need a landfill and I’m willing to talk about it being in the town of Rochester.”
But Howard Bell of Kerhonkson, who said he lives on the Rochester border, wondered where that might be. “What troubles me is all this talk about a county landfill. It may be a necessity, but where do you site it? What’s Carl’s idea for a site?” (To which someone in the room called out, “Your house …”).
Changaris, the industry spokesman, said landfills are definitely not near the top of the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s list of things to do with the garbage.
“It will take you five to ten years and $5 to $10 million before you even get a shovel in the ground,” he said.
Vote set for December 4
One source close to the county legislature sees it as a close vote, and observed that the mode of operation of County Executive Hein is to spring a complete plan on the legislature on which the balance of the pending county budget rides. Should the legislature choose to reject it, the responsibility would then fall to them to make other cuts in the county budget to offset the loss of the revenue that the plan was designed to bring in. Or find new revenues.
Were there a representative of the executive there, though, he might have pointed out that the county legislature had the ball in its court for years without making a move to resolve the net service fee question.
In informal conversations after the hearing, Legislator Don Gregorius of Woodstock, appeared ready to vote for the measure, one which he believes will pass, though perhaps narrowly. He echoed the position of Dare Thompson, pointing out that the law could be rescinded if it does not work. New Paltz’s Hector Rodriguez was outspokenly in support.
A block that appears to stand it its way is headed by legislator John Parete, of Olive and Shandaken. “I am adamantly opposed to it,” he said. Among other reforms, Parete believes that if the county has to pay a net service fee, it can be absorbed because it is then spread over a wide tax base, including New York City, which owns the Ashokan Reservoir and pays property taxes on wide swaths of land within his district. Parete’s son Richard, also a legislator, says, “I think it’s terrible policy … you’re going to give all that power to five unelected people [the RRA board of directors]?”
The county legislature will vote on the measure at its 7 p.m. Tuesday, December 4 meeting at the County Office Building on Fair Street in Kingston.
Annoying that you posted the article on the 5th, which made a great case why people should get involved prior to a decision being made. But at the end is the footnote that the vote is “on the 4th” (ie, in the past), so nobody can actually do anything about it.
True. Always best to read the print edition for that reason.
This newspaper might be the only one on the planet that has the online edition trailing BEHIND the print version.
Kiiiinda ridiculous. Shows exactly why newspapers are failing all over the place, though.
That would imply that those who put more content on their websites sooner are doing well. That has not been the case for small-market newspapers.
As I’m sure you are aware, online advertising is worth at-best a penny for every dime of print advertising. The numbers are worse for small markets because the view total is relatively small by web standards. Even if our tech savvy young readers believe we’re ridiculous, and we believe we’re ridiculous, you’d still need to convince the advertisers that they’re ridiculous.
So if you were running things, and almost all your money came from print advertising, what would you then do? Invest more in the web, posting every story to it ASAP? First, you’d have to pay someone to do that, it takes time. What the result be? Greater web traffic and reduced print circulation. You’d be spending more to increase the attraction of a medium where income potential is 1/10 the income potential of the other medium which you’d be devaluing by making it an afterthought. You’d be acting on the belief that change was inevitable, but there’s the stubborn matter of timing. What other business would be urged to devalue the source of 90% of their income? When is the right time to do this? We must not be there yet because it keeps failing.
It’s a sound business practice to invest according to return – so if the web will return 10%, we’ll put 10% of the content on it and spend 10% of payroll on it. If the proportions change and some small market newspaper somewhere starts making enough money to sustain an editor, a handful of reporters and a photographer based on web money, everyone will instantly make the switch. The reason newspapers are failing is because this has not worked anywhere yet.
The consideration isn’t entirely financial. We actually believe the print product is worth more. Readers today have too many distractions. We don’t think the web is a very good environment for extended reading. We’re trying to offer a mix of the digest (a briefing of news happening in town and the region) and long, detailed stories. If you pick up the actual newspaper, there is a sequence to it that’s conducive to understanding. (Think concept album vs. sliced and diced singles on iTunes.) You can find all the relevant stories about your town in one place, rather than hunt around on a website for the right link or menu. (Though the web is great as a repository for old stories readers may have missed.) You can read a long story without being tempted to click on something else. It’s just easier to concentrate.
I’m willing to believe that the strategy is wrong. But so far, all the other strategies have been wrong, too.
“First, you’d have to pay someone to do that, it takes time.”
You’re already paying a reporter to type that story into a computer to get laid-out and typeset for the print edition. Having that story also then go, once in electronic form, to the web, takes next to no time at all. If it DOES take some horrifically long time to copy-paste the material from one system to another, or some such, then that’s a problem with your internal work-flow, not the medium as a whole.
“The consideration isn’t entirely financial. We actually believe the print product is worth more.”
Wow! … just… wow.
OK, see that’s just an epic failure to understand the market you operate within. If the market forces are telling you ANYTHING, it’s that the dead-tree editions of newspapers become less and less valuable every single day. People simply don’t want to wait until an appointed time to learn only that news which was available at a deadline hours or even days before.
That’s not “news” in the modern sense.
Of course, you’re setting out to try and *make* that true. By publishing news stories on the web after their useful life has ended, you’re trying to artificially prop up the “value proposition” of the print edition. But, amusingly, it only show you as more out of touch, because you’re betting the farm, as it were, on the model that every single financial analyst says is going to eventually go the way of the do-do.
“If you pick up the actual newspaper, there is a sequence to it that’s conducive to understanding. (Think concept album vs. sliced and diced singles on iTunes.)”
Here’s a tip: You’re not Rush. You’re not in the business of creating concept albums of information. You’re in the business of writing news articles and they SHOULD be able to stand independently of each other. I don’t have to read the New York Times cover to cover in order for it to be “conducive to understanding”.
“I’m willing to believe that the strategy is wrong. But so far, all the other strategies have been wrong, too.”
Well, clutching onto the known-to-be-dying part of the market-segment, while squarely shooting in the head and devaluing the market-segment that will almost certainly be 100% of your business within a couple decades, seems to be squarely TRYING to destroy the business.
But … hey, it’s your business to run as you see fit.
Good luck with that.