Stephentown is considering a Town Clean-Up Day. A new shed for the Transfer Station, and some really cheap mowing were about the only topics of discussion at the May 20 Town Board Meeting.
In the interest of keeping the Town tidy—or tidier, anyway—Councilwoman Pam Kueppers was tasked with looking into the possibility of a clean-up day for the Only Stephentown on Earth. Seeing as how it’s the only one, it might as well be a neat one. Kueppers said the Town of New Lebanon just had its fifth yearly event and, as usual, it was a very popular. “People down there think it’s great,” said the Councilwoman.
New Lebanon’s clean-up day is organized by the Town’s Zoning/Code Enforcement Officer Cissy Hernandez. The idea is to make it easier for residents to legally rid themselves of their junk without the Town having to write tickets and make residents grumpy as they try to keep things orderly. Residents regularly turn out in droves—or pickup trucks—and fill dumpster after dumpster with Town officials usually there meeting residents and taking their junk. The cost is a donation to Charlie’s Food Pantry.
While nobody would argue that a clean-up day isn’t a great thing, there are differences between the two towns that might make replicating New Lebanon’s event a bit costly. The first of which, is that New Lebanon doesn’t have a Transfer Station and Stephentown does. Councilman Bill Jennings, who oversees that Transfer Station warned that “it could be expensive.” He was worried residents might save up their junk and then have it all show up at once when it was free. If everyone was allotted two free pickup truck loads of junk, the Town would still be on the hook for getting rid of that junk and yet it wouldn’t get the $120 each it would have received normally. Multiply $120 times the number of pickup trucks in Stephentown and the resulting number would probably have too many zeros in it for anyone to be comfortable with.
Another difference is that the people north of Columbia County seem to be more attached to their junk. “Some of these people like that stuff,” pointed out the Highway Superintendent, Aldi Goodermote. “They think it’s gold.”
Certainly “there is gold in them thar hills,” when it comes to Rensselaer County, but some of it does often end up along the roads, in the creeks, and all too often tucked away in the State Park. Old tires are one of the most popular items when it comes to people flinging them off of the back of trucks in the middle of the night, usually accompanied by Bud-Lite beer cans. Why that particular flavor of watery suds is so often paired with lawless tire chucking is unknown.
“Getting rid of tires is almost impossible,” pointed out Town Supervisor Larry Eckhardt. Legally anyway. Bud-Lite fans have proven its actually very possible, and seem to actually look forward to making a night of it.
Councilman Jennings, though, was flabbergasted. Here he has been working for years to make the Town’s Transfer Station a well-run hub for recycling, and still the Town’s own Supervisor was lamenting he can’t get rid of tires. “Our Transfer Station is the best place to get rid of tires,” said Jennings. Stephentown only charges $2 per tire which is what they pay themselves to get rid of them. Why would the Supervisor think otherwise?
“Well,” said Eckhardt, “I’m not sure Agnes at the Transfer Station would be too happy if I showed up with a thousand tires.”
Aha! That explains things. If you have four old tires, you can get rid of them for the price of a 12-Pack of Bud Lite, and then you won’t even have to drink that stuff. If you have a thousand tires you are looking at a serious bill. Nevertheless, the Supervisor seemed pleased with the idea of a clean-up day of some kind coming to Stephentown, and he asked Councilwoman Kueppers to continue looking into it. “I really think this is a good kick-off,” he said.
Should the Supervisor show up at the Transfer Station with his thousand tires, at least Agnes there will have a more comfortable abode in which she can endure her unhappiness. Stephentown received two bids to put in a new shed there and so that project should be up and running soon. Both bids were so close –around $6,000 depending on siding options—that it was literally too close to call. The decision was to accept both and let Councilman Jennings study the details of each one before making a final choice between Shaw’s Contracting of Hoosick Falls, and the Shed Man of New Lebanon.
When it came to accepting a bid for the seasonal mowing of the Town Hall and the Town Park, a winner was easier to call. There were four bids that ranged from over $100 to less than $60. One David Crowley of Berlin bid just $55 to mow both lawns. Nobody knew who Crowley was, but they will because he’s going to be the guy out mowing the lawns this summer. What he will be using to mow those lawns at such cut-rate prices remains to be seen. “Don’t be surprised if you find a fence erected and some sheep in there,” laughed the Supervisor. Added benefits of that, if it really happened, would be free fertilizer, low noise levels, and zero pollution. However, whatever Crowley uses, his services are already attracting attention. “Is he available for private jobs?” asked Councilman Gerald Robinson.
And finally, the “never-ending pursuit of a Cable TV franchise” for Stephentown is continuing, updated Councilman Robinson. An advisory committee is up and running and doing everything they already did all over again because that’s what happens when you have to ask the government permission to watch TV. “We persist,” stated Robinson, who added that he would be surprised if anything is accomplished by October.
“Notice he didn’t say what year October,” jested the Supervisor.