Jerry Jennings Has A Stink About Him

The apocalypse is coming...and there's nothing Mayor Jennings or the Albany Common Council can do about it. To make a long story short, The City of Albany gets approximately $10,000,000 a year from its Rapp Rd. landfill. After an ongoing expansion, the landfill will reach full capacity in 2021 leaving behind a substantial hole in the City's budget. By the Mayor's logic, the Common Council needs to simply vote to approve expenditures to keep the expansion going so we can put this current chapter behind us and BEGIN to plan for a post Rapp Rd. future. The Common Council, in its infinite wisdom, seeks a plan moving forward as if the Mayor is the only one capable of developing such a plan.

By the Mayor's logic, The City of Albany is not alone in its predicament because other current partner municipalities will be in a similar predicament and therefore, through the strength of their collective will and capital, will bond together to utilize some unknown future trash-to-money magic which will herald a bright new day for the City.

Problem is, the City is, in truth, utterly alone in this predicament. Only the City relies upon revenue from the landfill. The rest of the partner municipalities and private haulers simply rely upon the landfill for space. This space can be found from any number of other local/regional/state landfills. Yes, the partner municipalities may have to pay more to place their trash elsewhere but this doesn't really amount to any kind of real financial catastrophe.

In the Mayor's fantasy the City and its so-called partners will presumably construct some kind of state-of-the-art waste facility in an unknown location within the next ten years with zero planning, permitting or funding in place. This fairy-tale facility will presumably accept waste at a competitive rate thus preserving the status-quo and plugging the substantial hole in the City's budget.

In reality, its highly unlikely the City will be able to afford such a facility for its trash placement...much less
one that will offer a competitive rate to accept outside trash.

As it stands, the Mayor understands all this but is unwilling to admit it (not a solid foundation for getting re-elected). The Common Council apparently believes such critical planning is beyond their intellectual abilities or purview. And in its capacity as the region's foremost newspaper, the Times Union is stuck offering hollow opinion pieces that echo the Common Council's concerns about a future plan...but fail state what common sense makes so clear: The City is screwed six ways till Sunday.

On a totally unrelated note, Soares Spot absolutely eviscerates the Times Union for its past support of David Soares. Truly a must read.