Trash agency under fire for alleged lack of transparency

Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency officials may face questions about their alleged lack of transparency during a scheduled a May 12 meeting on a proposed plan to charge municipalities for new roll-off containers.

The session is scheduled for 5 p.m. at the Russell Brott Senior Center on Town Hall Drive.

Under the plan, municipalities would pay $85 monthly for each container over a 10-year period, but would only have five-year service contracts. The agency would still own the containers and could require the municipalities to pay for the entire purchase if they pull out of the agreement early.

Pressure on municipal leaders to agree to a deal has led to some questions about the agency’s operations.

Marbletown Supervisor Michael Warren says the agency rejected his request to review expense reports, email correspondence, and fiscal documents related to a threat that service would be discontinued if agreements are not reached.

“The first [state Freedom of Information] request I put in they sent back to me because there’s not a signature on it,” he said.

A second request that he said was signed was also turned down as too broad, Warren said.

“One of the requests was I just wanted copies of the monthly expense forms for the executive and two other people for the year of 2014,” he said. “It’s about as specific as you can get.”

State Committee on Open Government Executive Director Robert Freeman on Wednesday said no signature would be needed to obtain the records that Warren is seeking.

“The only time that one’s identity becomes significant involves a situation in which someone is seeking information about himself or herself that nobody else would have the right to obtain,” he said.

There have also been questions raised by some municipal officials whether recent site inspections by the agency have been out of compliance with the state Open Meetings Law because there have been a majority of board members together.

Freeman said such a tour could take place legally only if there were no deliberations among the board members on the site inspections, who were Charles Landi, David Gordon, and Dominic Tagliafierro.

“If the purpose is to merely observe and there is some kind of indication that a discussion regarding whatever they see will occur after the fact, within the confines of the Open Meetings Law, that would be OK,” Freeman said. “On the other hand, if the site visit involves discussion (or) deliberation with or without whoever may be the

owner of the parcel, that would be different ... and trigger the application of the Open Meetings Law.”

Agency board member David Gordon previously noted that there were discussions with transfer station personnel.

Board member Landi on Wednesday defended having discussions during the tour. Landi said the touring agency board members did not consider themselves to be out of compliance because there were no votes taken and the visits were discussed in advance with the agency attorney.

“How else would you be able to ascertain the right and wrong thing to do if you weren’t able to meet and discuss,” he said.

Agency attorney Kenneth Gilligan on Wednesday said advice given to the members were consistent with Freeman’s comments and that there was not supposed to be discussion during the tour. “They were told not to have any discussions,” he said. “They were just going to see what the places looked like.”

Agency officials contend that complaints about their proposals and actions have come from only a few municipal officials. They have focused on New Paltz town representatives, including Councilman Jeff Logan, for characterizing the agency as being like the Mafia and Supervisor Susan Zimet for agreeing with the reference.

Landi said inquiries about the agency have amounted to a “witch hunt” and “there is something all wet going on” with complaints from New Paltz officials.