It only took three minutes for things to get ugly at the Colonie Town Board meeting on Thursday, Sept. 22, when Republican candidate for supervisor Denise Sheehan, yet again, ripped into the town for its operating agreement for the landfill with Waste Connections, Inc.
Coming off the heels of the transfer of operations of the landfill over to Waste Connections, Inc. on Monday, Sept. 19, Colonie Republican candidates came out against the town, yet again, for what they believe is a bad deal for the town. The discussion merely came down to discussing whether the $23 million the town would receive upfront would wipe away the town’s general fund deficit of a little over $10 million as well as its landfill deficit of $11.4 million.
Sheehan contested that the deficit, based off of numbers the town filed with the New York State Comptroller’s office for its end of the year 2010 financial update, was actually $18 million instead of the little over $10 million the town has claimed it is.
When Republican Town Board candidate Pete Molinaro began speaking in regards to if the town had consulted bond and finance experts before the contract was signed, he hit a nerve that Mahan said offended her.
“Let me just be frank with my question because, I know, we get up here and we’ve done this a lot, we dance around,” Molinaro said. “So, let’s stop dancing. We heard…”
“I’m not dancing, Peter,” Mahan interjected. “Please don’t… I’m offended by that. We have been doing everything we can to do it exactly the way it’s supposed to be done. We have been going through this for a very long time. I don’t have all the answers for you at the tip of my tongue. The bottom line is, to say dancing around, we have given…”
“I was just talking about myself dancing,” Molinaro said.
“Well maybe you’re dancing,” Mahan said, “but I’m not.”
The discussion continued for over a half hour as Mahan tried to grasp as to why Molinaro and Sheehan are being critical of an agreement she believes is good for the town financially. Sheehan continued to try to have Mahan say that the deficit would be at zero once the town used the upfront money from the operating agreement. Mahan and Colonie Comptroller Craig Blair would say it would “eliminate” them.
A debate also took place over whether the town got the best deal from the agreement, in which Waste Connections will pay the town $100 million over 25 years. Molinaro said a study from the town’s own engineers claimed the landfill’s worth was several hundred million dollars. He then referred to Albany County Comptroller Mike Conners’ estimate of the landfill being worth $600 million.
The numbers in the study Molinaro looked at were based off of gross income, Mahan said, and that the last column explains the landfill only brings in a net income of $918,000 per year. She also said the landfill only grosses $10 million a year, without including expense.
“It would take 60 years to get $600 million,” Mahan said. “That’s before you pay any of your employees, you run the landfill, you buy equipment, you make repairs, you make improvement and you close your landfill.”
Molinaro continued to say that he felt the town could run the landfill on its own, make necessary improvements and do a better job of running the landfill financially, a point which Mahan agreed with. Mahan, though, then asked if Molinaro had a better plan in mind.
“First of all, I still don’t have all the information that you are privy to,” he said. “I asked to open up the [Landfill Exploratory] committee so we could participate, and the answer was no.”
Republican Town Board Member Dan Dustin soon weighed in and said after looking through the financial report that it showed the town had a deficit in its general fund of $18 million. Mahan soon tore into Dustin for his negativity throughout the process.
“You have not been positive about the whole thing and the bottom line is I don’t understand how you can sit up here and not want your town to get into better financial shape, to pay off deficits that you were also left with,” she said. “How would you like to wake up every day and have to pay everyone else’s bills?”
Dustin soon responded and said that he was offended Mahan said in a public forum that he has been negative on the landfill issue. At that point, members of the crowd soon began shouting out before Town Attorney Mike Magguilli tried to restore some order before Dustin continued his response.
“You continually go back to past history, but I think we have to look at current history,” Dustin said the town accrued $10 million in losses in the last two years. “It’s not so much what’s going to happen today, tomorrow or whatever, things haven’t gotten better.”
Town Board Member Dan Hornick and Blair contested that the numbers being used by Republicans were inflated since they were including depreciation, which Mahan said is out of the town’s control.
Mahan made sure to note that the landfill deal will not solve all of the town’s problems and that there is a lot more work to be done.
“It’s a long road,” she said.
