Politics and Garbage – That Sweet Smell
Politics and Garbage
That Sweet Smell
By Daniel Van Riper
A Bigger Dump Believe it or not, Albany Mayor Jerry
Jennings wants to expand the City Dump in the Pine Bush on Rapp Road. He’s given up on the idea of throwing the city’s trash onto a farm
down in Coeymans and wants to take another 15 to 20 acres out of the
Pine Bush and make a new garbage pile. More than a fifth of the
garbage in the Albany City Dump (euphemistically referred to as “the
landfill”) is generated by the State of New York, so the State has a
serious interest in continuing to have a cheap place to dump it’s
waste products. Perhaps Mr. Jennings is counting on his “friends” in
the Pataki administration to help him through the legal rough spots
in getting approval for this clearly illegal dump. Alongside the two
earlier towers of garbage Mt. Trashmore and Mt. Jorling, we would
like to be the first to name this proposed mound of crap “Jenning’s
Pile”.
Big Money The State finally purchased the strategic ten
acre piece of Pine Bush called the Swire parcel along Rt. 155 in
Albany. We are all glad to see it put into preserve, but the State
paid the outrageous sum of $1.5 million. We have an uncomfirmed
report that the late Louis Swire originally paid $40 thousand for
this land, and we can’t help but suspect that his heirs held the
State hostage on this and made out like bandits. While Save the Pine
Bush never specifically sued over this piece of land, our vigilant
legal actions over nearby parcels clearly were a major factor in preventing these ten acres from bing destroyed. Naturally, at a
press conference at the site to announce the purchase, the
politicians took all the credit for themselves and didn’t mention
Save the Pine Bush.
Jack Wins Big Congratulations to Jack McEneny for winning
his re-election bid for his Assembly seat by a big 3-to-1 margin over
sore loser Gary Domalewicz, who, instead of congratulating the
winner, called him a liar and whined about money. This rout is
correctly percieved as a major defeat for Albany Mayor Jennings, who
put Domalewicz up to this race. But don’t count Jennings out, he
still has plenty of influence.
Speculator’s Friend The spectacularly corrupt US Senator
from New York, Alphonse D’Amato, recently sent a letter to Save the
Pine Bush explaining why he supports the so-called Citizens Access to
Justice Act, which protects land speculators from local ordinances
designed to protect local communities. “The goals of these measures
(sic)” writes D’Amato, “is to simplify and expedite access to Federal
courts for injured parties whose rights and privileges have been
deprived by final actions of Federal, state or local government.” In
other words, speculators and developers can ignore local laws and
build whatever they want as long as Congress says it’s OK to do so. This would put Save the Pine Bush out of business. Enough said. D’Amato has got to go. Democratic candidate Charles “Chuck” Schumer
has a solid environmental record and deserves to be our next senator.
published Oct/Nov 98 Newsletter
