Our Transfer Station since September of this year has taken in 48 Tons of Tires. This fury of mysterious deliveries has cost us taxpayers more than $7,100 so far this year, and more than $18,000 in the past 3 1/2 years.
I pointed this extreme volume out during the Budget Committee meeting on the Transfer Station last evening and it was explained by Ronal Patch the Department Head / Selectmen, that these were simply tires picked about town left on the road. I contend the tires are being hauled in by the Commercial Enterprise allowed to use our facility, and or businesses, tire dumps and junkyards in the surrounding area. How many tires is 48 Tons you ask? … it’s about 3600 tires! I took the the volume of tires and applied the excuse provided, tons to miles, it’s ludicrous.
There is No Revenue into our Town for these “found tires” and there seemed to be little cause for concern by Mr. Patch. I explained and showed in detail how the entire two plus years earlier we had not brought in as many as we have in the last 3 months…and how even those lower annual numbers are alarming and excessive at, 48 ton so far for 2009, 10 ton for 2008, 39 ton for 2007 and 22 ton for 2006.
This totals 119 Ton of Tires or nearly 9,000 tires! If you spread these around evenly on our 90 miles of road, that would be 99 tires per mile or one tire every 53 feet!!! If you only use the tonnage of the tires picked up since September of this year that is 40 tires per mile or one tire every 132 feet, We as residents would have seen these tires all over before they were picked up. I am not making any of this up folks! See Supporting Detail Here
Just to have these tires hauled away, It has cost taxpayers $18,000.00 this does not include disposal. This cost also does not include the alleged hours of hauling and pick-up by the sub-contractors to deliver them to the Transfer Station.
If you were to buy the explanation provided by Mr. Patch, to pay a sub-contractor to pick-up this volume of tires the Road Commissioner would need a budget line with it’s own expense. Think about it, If you used a 1 ton truck, you would have to make at least 48 trips this fall alone, plus they would have to find these scattered tires, stop toss one in, pull up, stop, toss one in, it would take endless hours. Did I mention most of the tires for this fall came in during December and January? It’s tough to dig them tires out of the snow…granted we haven’t had much snow lately, but at that time we did. How does one find them under the snow?
I believe the majority of people when they get tires put on there car, have the garage they purchased them at keep the dead ones for disposal. The volume of tires we taxpayers have paid for in the last 44 months, is about 1.5 tires for every single person man woman and child in town! Occam’s Razor states in short “the simplest answer is usually the correct one.” The simple answer is…They are being collected and hauled in to the facility from junkyards, stations and tire dealers.
This only serves to strengthen the argument we can’t allow commercial haulers into our facility and we are not controlling the operation of the facility properly. The Lack of concern by the people in charge of managing the facility is troubling. How anyone can not see this a major cause for concern and not be alarmed is beyond me. This warrants full detailed investigation and as a minimum a moratorium on Tire disposal.
One Tire For Every 53 Feet of Road- Yes..Thats What You Have Paid For!
13 responses so far ↓
1 Tire buster // Mar 11, 2010 at 2:01 pm
I caught someone dumping a load of tires on a little back road in Lebanon. I gave this man a stern warning, and told him never to come back. He told me where he gets the tires from and that he gets paid to haul them away. He explained to me that the Transfer Station charges per tire, so he just dumps them on back roads. This is a lucrative little side business for this man. The Road Commissioner was called and he picked up the tires and delivered them to the Transfer Station. We need a solution to this problem, we need to clean up our streets.
2 Glen Stadig // Mar 11, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Buster… Recall the company, color of the truck, plate number? Sounds like you had quite a conversation. It’s a severe penalty to toss tires.
If you take the 3586 tires delivered during the recent 16 week period… It’s 224 tires per week or 6.25 Tires for EVERY HOUR of the 36 the transfer station was open each week. As it shows most of the tires were delivered over 8 weeks…in that case the delivery rate was 12.5 tires for EVERY HOUR OPEN…see the slips in the detail.
I have a solution to slow it down….allow residents with permits in the town to simply drop a maximum of 4 per tires per trip.
If a person could make 5 trips an hour, continuously it would take them 20 weeks and 717 trips. These tires are NOT all coming off the roads in our town…and the volume is insane.
If you see a person dumping tires, take a photo, and call the cops, not just if you see a truck In the Transfer Station dropping tires, but on the roads as well. most cell phones have cameras.
What do you say Lebanon…lets put up a bounty for photos of the wrong doers that identify the plate and or company?
3 striveforchange // Mar 11, 2010 at 8:36 pm
I think this calls for Ronal Patch’s resignation as a selectman, Don’t you? Why isn’t Mr. Patch more concerned about what’s going on with this? If that is happening at the transfer station, WHAT ELSE IS?
$18,000 would buy quite a few Library Books, or pay the salary for 1/2 a year for a school aide!!!
4 Glen Stadig // Mar 13, 2010 at 1:23 pm
The $18,000 is only the cost to haul these tires away! It doesn’t account for the hidden costs of “Allegedly” picking them up and hauling them into the Transfer Station.
If you placed the 3600 tires hauled out just since Sept, and placed them end to to end, they would reach over 2 miles. (3600 tires @3 feet each = 10800 feet/5280 feet per mile=2.04 miles)
5 chris // Mar 13, 2010 at 10:57 pm
I’m shocked.
Time for a Town Administrator that will properly address these issues to the AG’s office and also get this reported to the County Sheriff and State Troopers.
I have heard\seen the talk of a Town Manager but I think as a town we need to take smaller measured steps. A Town Manager changes the whole game…
I think it’s time to get rid of the Road Commissioner and actually hire someone at a fair salary for that job.
I think it’s time we pay selectmen a yearly stipend rather than by the hour. We also shouldn’t be reimbursing anyone for mileage to meetings.
6 Laugh Out Loud!! // Mar 13, 2010 at 11:12 pm
I agree Chris. The selectmen could hire a road agent like NB and pay him a weekly salary and thats all he does. With the savings, we could buy a used truck.
The selectmen should be salary – I always see them at the town hall and maybe they should get a set stipend.
7 chris // Mar 13, 2010 at 11:59 pm
If a Town Administrator is in place it will relieve a lot of the petty day to day things that the Selectmen are involved with. A $2000 stipend would suffice for Selectmen.
A salaried employee is the way to go with a position like the highway dept…
8 Glen Stadig // Mar 14, 2010 at 9:02 pm
All good points…. Town Manager would be a Town Administrator. The concept of a Town Manager that has some really limited controls and not provided the power to make the day to day decisions like an administrator would likely be ineffective. If we adopted a Town Manager plan we have the oversight from the Selectmen and have a point person to manage the day to day departmental and town matters. I think we get better management, better controls, and better checks and balances. Transparency and accountability would simply be part of the process. I say try it for a few years…we can always go back. Nothing ventured nothing gained..
9 Confused // Mar 14, 2010 at 9:24 pm
We need a town manager – then we can have someone at town hall that is there that is friendly and willing to help, something it lacks now when I go to register my vehicle.
10 chris // Mar 14, 2010 at 9:50 pm
A Town Manager is more protected and it would be much harder than you think to “go back”. A Town Manager is more than likely to grow the government. He/She will eventually “NEED” a secretary. Then we’ll “NEED” a finance director… A Town Administrator will try the same but it will still remain in the Selectmen’s hands, which I know is scary at this present time, but we have to remember that the residents have the control. We just need more people to show up and vote! More active voices.
11 striveforchange // Mar 14, 2010 at 9:53 pm
A town manager would be great.
I am greatly concerned about two of our selectmen who think it is just fine to get money for traveling back and forth to the meetings. I’d like to know how much they get a mile? They have been told this is not kosher and continue to do it anyway. Of course, its like that in most of the departments.
It also worries me a great deal about the dump and how much money flows through there in a day and no record of it. Once you get your hands dirty its easy to go back and do it again. What is the solution?
12 chris // Mar 14, 2010 at 10:15 pm
First thing, Patch needs to go, either as a selectmen or as the transfer station manager. Or, both.
I think we need to get a few warrant articles on the ballot to straighten a few things out too.
No more road commissioner!
No more selectmen also working as a town department head. That is just insanity. Conflict of interest policy needs to be in place and the transfer station situation needs to be rectified. This needs to be in place to not interfere with a dedicated helpful paid volunteer that wants to also be a selectmen (example, jason cole)
13 striveforchange // Mar 14, 2010 at 11:34 pm
First of all isn’t there a conflict of interest policy in place already? I know town hall ignores it. I think that Jason Cole is the Assistant Chief of the Rescue. I agree no more road commissioner. I also noticed that vendors are full of family members. What about that situation? Patch needs to simply be relieved completely. His wife should NOT be allowed to be working in Town Government at all. She was ousted a couple of years ago. What’s up with her being back in it?
I sure hope somebody out votes Frizzell this June. I am concerned about the town charter committee if it gets voted in and he gets voted in. Patch and Frizzell put in the good ol’ boys on the town charter committee, we will be in trouble much more than we are now!!!!
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