Information For Petersburgh On Transfer Station
To the people of Petersburgh: the Berlin Town Board, at our settlement night of December 29, voted to extend the option for all residents of the Town of Petersburgh the ability to purchase both permits and tickets directly from Berlin for 2021. This was reaffirmed at our first board meeting of this year. Our current costs are $15 for the permit and $2 per ticket. All services that we have been providing are still available.
The renewal request for the Transfer Station contract was sent to your Town Board in October. Obviously, your board did not realize that the contract did not coincide with the permit expiration.
On January 11, Berlin received an unsigned and undated letter supposedly from the Petersburgh Town Board with the letterhead from the desk of Tom Berry, Board Member. This document indicated that they rejected the contract change at their December 21 meeting. In this letter they objected to the 50/50 split of operational cost given the fact we sell 66% more permits than Petersburgh. This is interesting since Petersburgh sold about 305 permits (with some duplicates in the mix) while Berlin sold 461 permits (again with some being second permits to the same number). It must be the new math because that sure doesn’t look like 66% more! This letter then continues with a proposal to allow the yellow tickets to be utilized until January 31. They graciously offer to reimburse us $2 for each ticket presented voicing concern for the transfer station employees and the possibility of confrontation because of the requirement for blue tickets only. To which I would like to thank the residents of Petersburgh for making the transition virtually trouble free. This letter further indicates that if we couldn’t reach an agreement that they would consider other alternatives to provide the Petersburgh townspeople the service. This seems ironic since the banner headline in the December 11 Eastwick Press clearly reads, “Town Plans To Run Its Own Transfer Station.”
Up until seven years ago Petersburgh had been paying $1,000 per month per the original contract, at which time the board objected to that payment and the monthly fee was dropped to $700. Also, since its inception the agreement included the splitting of operational costs equally.
For the year 2020 Petersburgh received $11,926.20 from fees at the transfer station. Reportedly they have sold about 300 permits at $25 which would account for $7,500. We have no idea of how many yellow tickets were sold by the Petersburgh Town Clerk at $2.50 per ticket. Using the scenario of 2 bags of garbage a week, which is $5, times 52 weeks equals $260 per year times 300 permits which equals $78,000 in income?
Again, I wish to thank the residents of Petersburgh for your tolerance during this transition and we look forward to being able to provide the same service which both towns have experienced since the transfer station was created.
Rob Jaeger
Berlin Town Supervisor