[Previous entry: "The County Council May Be Moving Toward A Decision On Solid Waste"] [Next entry: "80K Free Trips To Dump Dumped By CC"]

09/01/2010: "Auditor’s Advice To CC Minces No Words"

Milene Henley apologized to the County Council on Tuesday for having “tried to stay out of this solid waste mess,” stating she decide to testify to the council at the continued work session on solid waste to “point out the cost in real dollars in your failure to act.”

Henley handed out a graph that showed “the balance in the solid waste fund.. since 2008” that showed that “no time during that period had the fund been in the black” and that the “trend line for the combined negative balance will clearly exceed one million dollars before the end of the year.”


Henley said that with the exception of the land Bank and the Equipment Rental and Revolving Fund, the county is frighteningly close to broke.” Henley said the Council may not remember that “the solid waste budge for 2010 included 1.6 million dollars of revenue ‘To be determined by Council’ and yet she said that “eight months into the year there has been lot’s of discussions, but no decision and no revenue.”

Henley said the recent survey was a waste of money, and more importantly, it was a waste of time; adding “there is no more time to study the subject. Any more study is a waste of time”

Henley took issue with the advise of a SWAC (Solid Waste Advisory Committee) member who had urged the council to “not make haste’, calling it nonsense and another stall tactic. “you have never made haste” she told the council, adding that “you have stalled, and delayed, and put off to the point that you have brought the County close to bankruptcy. You can’t stall anymore”

As to the action they should take, Henley said she too supported a $5.00 gate fee that had been proposed as a stop-gap measure to buy some time as the Council addresses a solution to the funding problem with the solid waste program, stating that “will at least put a finger in the dyke, but that is all it will do.”

Henley warned the Council that as they go forward later in the day and take up long term plans, that the combinations and permutations are endless and the council can not look at all of them, and agreed with Patty Miller’s comments that options can not be looked at without considering costs.

“when you look at costs, it is patently clear that the ‘full service business as usual’ option is not viable.”

She did however suggest they “go ahead and make it one of three options, and for the other two she recommended one transfer station, and zero transfer stations, and direct your staff to give you in broad strokes the cost, choices, and implications of each, within a month; do not wait for perfect data; do not wait until all possible questions are answered; choose one based on the best information available, and then staff can stop wasting their time.. and focus on one and give you choices within a narrow range of options.”

Henley ended her comments by again apologizing for not coming forward before, and for the directness of her comments, but stated as a citizen and an elected official she was “gravely disturbed by what I see.” “This is a solvable problem, but only with action” she said.