Carmel Councilman Re-opens Trash Talk
As he had promised during the campaign last year before being elected, Carmel Town Councilman John Lupinacci re-opened the fact-finding efforts to help to come to a definitive conclusion as to whether a town-wide garbage pick-up service would provide residents with a cost-savings, or ultimately would cost them more money in the end to have their trash hauled away.
Councilman Lupinacci introduced a proposal to his colleagues on the board that would cost an estimated $3,000 in order to hire an outside firm to map the town into three separate zones that would then be put out individually for competitive bid to establish what garbage carting services potentially would charge to do pick-ups for each zone.
“This is a necessity in order for us…to finally determine if town-wide garbage is affordable or not; feasible or not,” Lupinacci said.
He explained what the mapping process would accomplish.
“There are, town-wide, about 11,000 property types or residences that would be eligible for town-wide garbage. But now those 11,000 have to be divided up between the A, B, and C [zones],” Lupinacci explained, noting that commercials properties would not be serviced by a potential town-wide program and would be required to negotiate individual contracts with carters.
Splitting the requests for proposals into three zones would make the bidding among garbage hauling companies more competitive, Lupinacci said.
“We believe…that it would be wise to break it up into zones for one, to create a little competition within and also it would always be nice that if there are multiple vendors coming in, to continue the competition if there is a rebidding process,” he said.
Lupinacci said that coming to a conclusion on the matter of garbage pick-up in town and the cost of it, which has been the subject of myriad discussions by the Carmel Town Board over the past two years, was worth the $3,000.
“I don’t think it’s a lot of money to basically find out if we can give the residents town-wide garbage and finally put this to bed; either we can do it, or we should not do it,” he said.
Carmel Town Supervisor Kenneth Schmitt said he agreed with the proposal and said it was money well-spent to continue the fact-finding that would help the Town Board make a determination on whether or not establishing a town-wide garbage pick-up, in which residents would pay a tax to the town that would then negotiate a contract with garbage carting companies in lieu of individual homeowners doing so themselves, would save taxpayers money.
In July 2010, Carmel Supervisor Schmitt, along with Councilman Frank Lombardi and former Councilman Robert Ravallo, in an informal straw poll, voted to cease further discussion on the potential financial pros and cons of implementing a town-wide garbage program that months previously had been introduced by former Town Councilman Anthony DiCarlo.
At that July 2010 meeting, Councilwoman Suzanne McDonough said she was not in favor of rejecting the proposal until a full cost-benefit analysis had been completed..
Newly seated to the Carmel Town Board this year, Councilman Jonathan Schneider also said during the campaign last year that he was in favor of re-opening the fact-finding regarding a town-wide garbage program.
Last week, Supervisor Schmitt thanked his colleague for the work that was put into the proposal.
“I’d like to thank Councilman Lupinacci,” Supervisor Schmitt said. “You communicated with our town assessor on this issue, our town engineer, our engineering projects coordinator, you spent some time with them going over this issue…and collecting background information that we need to move forward with this.”
Board members were expected to vote on the measure to whether not to approve the $3,000 in spending at their next meeting, this Wednesday, May 2.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.
