by Alex Brooks
A joint meeting of the Petersburgh and Berlin Town Boards on March 27 began with Supervisor Rob Jaeger of Berlin asking Supervisor Siegfried Krahforst of Petersburgh what the Petersburgh Board wanted to discuss. Krahforst replied that they wanted to meet to renegotiate the contract for the use of the Berlin Transfer Station. He said the sticking point is the monthly rent of $1,000.
[private]Jaeger replied that the contract has been in place as long as he has been in office, going on seven years. He said, “No where in the contract does it say that we have to share the revenues from the station, but we do.” He said last year Berlin paid back to Petersburgh $12,652 in revenue sharing – more than Petersburgh paid in rent.
Jaeger also said Berlin had some issues about transfer station use that they wanted to discuss. People come to the station without a sticker and say it’s in their other car. One person came in with a 2004 sticker which they tried to pass off as a 2014 sticker, he said. Krahforst said the Town of Petersburgh can’t do anything about that – it’s up to the transfer station attendants to enforce the rules. Jaeger asked Petersburgh to send a list of the names of people who have bought permits so that it can be checked in case of disputes at the station. Petersburgh Town Clerk Callie Crisp said she would send that list to the Berlin Clerk.
Jaeger also said that the Town of Berlin will continue to control rates and fees. Krahforst said he had no problem with that. Jaeger cited as a cautionary tale the case of Stephentown, where he said they raised rates and many people stopped using the transfer station.
Krahforst then made his case for lowering the rent. He said Petersburgh is smaller than Berlin and has significantly less users of the station than Berlin does, so splitting the costs evenly already favors Berlin. He said he thinks $1,000 per month is “excessive.” Petersburgh Councilperson Denise Church said that over the 20 years that the station has been in existence, Petersburgh has paid $240,000 in rent, which should have been enough to pay off the cost of purchase and construction. She said what she has been hearing from Petersburgh citizens that are talking to her about it is that they like the Berlin Transfer Station and would like to continue using it but “they think we are paying too much for it.”
There was some discussion about just how much bigger Berlin is than Petersburgh. Jack Barnhart said he had done some careful research on Petersburgh’s numbers. There are 641 households in Petersburgh, and 324 of them have garbage pickup service, so there are at most 317 households using the Transfer Station. But he guessed that there are quite a few less than that. Some may put their trash in their brother’s/mother’s trash that is being commercially picked up, some may be bringing it to a dumpster at work or burning it or who knows what else. Petersburgh Clerk Callie Crisp said that in 2011 230 people bought permits, in 2012, 262 people bought permits and so far this year 151 people have bought permits. This averages out to about 214 permits sold per year. Berlin Town Clerk Anne Maxon said she has sold 307 permits, and she recalls that it is usually just about that – “a little over 300 every year.”
Former Petersburgh Supervisor Peter Schaaphok was present. He was the Supervisor of Petersburgh when the original agreement for a joint transfer station was worked out, so he filled in some historical background. He said he originally had talked with Berlin Supervisor Ross Bentley about a jointly owned and operated transfer station, but he had encountered opposition to that idea from Petersburgh citizens who wanted Petersburgh to have its own transfer station. But when he pursued that idea, DEC said there was no way they would permit two transfer stations five miles apart. So Petersburgh went back to the joint transfer station with Berlin, but this time Berlin proposed to own and operate the station and have Petersburgh pay rent. The rent was originally $500 per month, but at some point it went up to $1,000 per month. Schaaphok could not recall exactly when or why the rent was doubled, but he thought it might have been related to an upgrade in the equipment, such as installation of the large compactor into which the garbage bags are thrown. He added, “I do recall that we were thinking we would not be paying that rent forever.”
Petersburgh Supervisor Krahforst said use of the station costs Petersburgh about $33,000 a year. He was under the impression that Berlin’s net cost for transfer station operations was significantly lower than that, but Berlin officials did not discuss their net cost. Supervisor Rob Jaeger said their budget for the Transfer Station last year was $124,000, and “$113,000 is our target for this year.”
Jaeger said Berlin billed Petersburgh a total of $60,903 last year, including the monthly rent, and paid back $12,652, so Petersburgh’s total cost was about $48,000. If Petersburgh had $15,000 of income from permits and tickets, that would come to Krahforst’s figure of $33,000 net cost, although Petersburgh Town Clerk Callie Crisp indicated that ticket and permit income was more like $12,000.
Berlin Board Member Steve Riccardi said even if much of the initial cost of building the Station has been paid off, as the owner of the Station, Berlin should still get some payment from Petersburgh for the use of it. He seemed to be willing to revisit the question of how much the rent should be but not willing to eliminate it altogether.
The Boards did not come to any firm conclusion, but Krahforst suggested that the Berlin Board think it over and get back to Petersburgh about whether they can lower or eliminate the monthly rent, and Petersburgh will then decide whether or not to accept Berlin’s offer. Krahforst suggested that he has been looking into some alternatives for Petersburgh’s garbage arrangements, and he said that some of them are quite low cost, but he didn’t say what the alternatives are.[/private]