The deal with SPSA and our neighbors to the east was set several years ago by contract. Now it seems that the big urban cities and others want to renegotiate the terms of the deal, and not in our favor! The following was brought to the last meeting of the SPSA Board:
"The Southeastern Public Service Authority Board of Directors shot down a surprise proposal Wednesday from Portsmouth to evaluate the disparate tipping fees paid by member communities."
This issue was brought forward by Portsmouth (and Norfolk, IOW and others) in response to the $170 per ton tipping fees now assessed for all but, Suffolk and Virginia Beach. Our City Manager, (to her great credit) voted this down and for good reason. We have taken the problems and issues of having the land-fill in our city and even the loss of development potential; as the costs to Suffolk for having the land-fill in our little town. However, the most defining issue has been that for the last several years SPSA as a group, has voted for unrealistically low tipping fees to make the big cities happy and have used borrowing to pay for day to day operations. Now that SPSA is in a huge hole (economically) there is a call to throw-out the existing contract and make a new deal... That is what is unfair, not the contract itself! The cities other than Suffolk and Virginia Beach made-out for years by artificially low tipping fees they were responsible for and as a result, debt went out of sight for their benefit. Now these same cities want Suffolk to help bear the present costs to pay such borrowing back and that is a problem (not to mention unfair)!
Those who paid low tipping fees for years will not and should not try to rope Suffolk into solving their problems now! Our City Manager was exactly right to vote NO, and should also explain that Suffolk will not do a reverse payout, so as to cover the insufficient tipping fees charged in the past to Portsmouth, Norfolk and others. SPSA as a group has a contract with Suffolk and that deal should stand firm and without wiggle room!
Roger A. Leonard, MPA
15 comments:
The City Manager voting no in the 5-3 decision was the right thing to do. She should now publicaly explain why. Very often a politico will vote one item down and later approve a modified version after arm twisting from the municipalities. Considerable presure will be applied to the City Manager and the Mayor to give up the current contract. Suffolk bulk trash pick up was once free and now we must pre-pay. What's to say our weekly garbage pick up won't be the next city charge to hit our pockets. It'll take backbone and resolve to keep saying no.
She should have said not and must keep up the effort or we are going to pay big time for the failure of others.
This is the right answer and can't change for political convinence.
I live in Wonderland Forest and agree with Roger that this was exactly the right thing for our City Manager to do and stand on concerning the SPSA Contract. Now I am waiting for the other shoe to drop and find out why the Mayor drops a political dime on us and agrees in the future to go-a-head and have us pay just to make Mayor Holly and Mayor Fraim happy with her as their regional buddy. You can count on our inept mayor and council to screw this up some way.
We need to hear from the Mayor now about standing firm on this issue. She should not let her political dreams mess up our SPSA Contract. With councilman "I can be seen on the golf-course" Gardy as our snoozing rep on SPSA we will not get much done there. So MS Mayor take a stand for us and make it count, the City Manager already has laid your work out for us and you. SPSA is a mess and it is right that it was done by the cheap-skates trying to keep tipping fees low and now the day of reconing has come home to roost, so to say. We should not pay their way out of their mess.
This issue seems like more carping from those who have made poor decisions in the past. I also agree with the comments made in this article that the ones paying tipping fees have tried to out-fox the Fox by keeping thier fees low and let debt build up and now the chickens are coming hoe to roost. Hold firm Suffolk leaders, this is one that you can not and should not compromise on!
While the City Manager is receiving positive comments for her vote. Perhaps she could get somebody in Public Works to explain why in the Chuckatuck Borough are automated grabage trucks costing 100's of thousands dollars missing. Every week garbage is picked up by teams of refuse engineers using the traditional can drag and dump method. Could it be the number of bulk pick ups have plummeted causing a employment surplus and a make-work mentality? Eric could explain why. We paid for automated trucks, plastic green garbage cans, big employee payroll and hefty worker's comp insurance for lower back injuries. It's likely they are over staffed but will never admit it. After all they're not paying for it, we are.
There are now two camps in Suffolk, the Automated and unAutomated areas. The Automated area has been given cans and now are stuck being charged for anything that can not fit into that can and for bulk pick-up. The unAutomated (mostly the south and west end of town) can put out almost anything that looks like a can or box and it gets picked up for free. I just moved into my new rental and they picked up a huge pile of boxes full of junk and garbage, becaue we don't have an Automated Route. My mom over in Northern Suffolk has ot make sure that she has everything in her big green can or else she gets a nasty note and must pay for the new bulk pickup fee. So the City cna keep their green cans where I now live and I will take unlimited pickup on garbage day!
This city has got to be the worst run and most mean-spirited in the entire state. They look for every way to take money from you and give nothing in return. I have also read the commnets of some that they dump thier stuff on the side of the road now so the city cna pick it up. Seems like thier good idea for $600,000 is being eatup by picking up dumped stuff, the cost to administer the permits and payments and so on. So much for effective and good managed city operations. Who ever came up with this twisted idea for payment for bulk pickup should be fired!
The Mayor should also get off her duff and come out and state clearly that Suffolk will never change their contract for free dumping with SPSA and do it now. We have a deal and they can not change now. Also what about the transfer stations we were getting? My mom told me that they were going to put one up north where she lives and one near Downtown. What hapened? Another deal lost by our dumb council and Managers?
Suffolk needs help and the SPSA deal will most likley brake them too and we will pay so the MAyor can look like a regional girl in god standing!
If there is another vote regarding tipping fees with Suffolk voting NO and the other municipalities votng YES, will we be forced to dig yet deeper into our pockets? Does Suffolk have the authority to halt deliveries if fees are levied?
I agree the Mayor's affirmation MUST be heard.
I am also concerned as to why our Mayor has not come out on this issue strongly. We need to have our back covered on this issue as there are some out there who would stick it to us in Suffolk. For the mayor and council it is imperative to send a letter of resolution stating that we intend to have all the terms of the SPSA deal honored.
We are talking about millions of dollars a year and now is not the time to have that come up.
Why no more news on SPSA? It seems that our leaders should make it clear that we have a contract and that is that.
After reading the Pilot today, it looks like Portsmouth is serious about demanding that Suffolk get off the gravey-train and pay up for trash disposal, too. They claim the $240,000,000 SPSA debt could be paid off in six years if VAB and Suffolk paid the $40,000,000 they owe for SPSA dumping each year, but they forget that the debt was built-up by defering the assessment of realistic tipping fees paid by Portsmouth and the other six paying members in the past. They demanded and voted that SPSA operating expenses be paid for with debt, instead of serviced it with tipping fee income paid by them and now the chickens are coming home to roost, so to speak. So again, the policies of those voting for and paying low tipping fees (including Portsmouth) were the problem, not the deal penned and agreed to by all to entice Suffolk to host the landfill (Smell, Traffic, and loss of land/taxes). If appropreate tipping fees had paid for SPSA's costs in the past rather than building SPSA debt, then there would be no problem now. So to my friends on Portsmouth City Council, you are off base. The reason debt was built, was by your own shortsighted votes and policies, so don't ask for us to pay your way now, as your demand rings hollow and "trashes" this failed experiment in "Regionalisum"...
Suffolk has a deal that they have held and been very accomidating of for years. We even let them off the hook for the Route-58 fly-over ($22,000,000) and the Suffolk Transfer Stations ($10,000,000) that were to reduce the need for the Fly-Over, so we have done more than we should have or were obligated to do. So until 2018, "A deal is a DEAL!"
Roger A. Leonard
Suffolk...
Good to see the council agree with Roger and telling Portsmouth that the SPSA deal is a DEAL. I also like the idea that if Portsmouth and Norfolk want a new SPSA deal we want our WATER BACK!
Really good ideas for all!
Isle of Wight County wants to trash its contract with the financially struggling Southeastern Public Service Authority, which has one of the highest municipal waste disposal fees in the country.
The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Thursday to draft a letter asking the regional trash authority — which was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy until it restructured about $240 million in debt and dramatically upped its rates this spring — to release the county from its contract with SPSA. The letter will be presented to supervisors for a vote on Sept. 24.
RATS LEAVING A SINKING SHIP!!!!!
WHY are Public Works bulk disposal trucks now being manned by two. In the past one man did it all drive, operate the crane and sort. Like the once highly acclaimed automated trucks that suddenly disappeared and replaced by typical collection and disposal technique, the city intends to keep a make work policy and overstaff to keep the payroll and ranks fat. The PW Director appears to has lost his ability to communicate and when challenged ducks the question. It's all about empire building and no one does it better than Sufolk Public Works.
"SPSA voted Thursday to sell its trash-burning power plant and garbage-sorting center in Portsmouth to Wheelabrator Technologies Inc. for $150 million and other incentives.
By a unanimous vote, the board of the Southeastern Public Service Authority ended a lengthy bidding and negotiating process for privatizing a major public asset for disposing of garbage in South Hampton Roads."
Now, how will they spend the money?
If they do not build the next cell, when the SPSA site becomes Suffolk's property in 2018 we will have our very own dump...
We must plan ahead now!
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