When we hear these whispers from the Pipeline, they never cease to amaze. Case in point, Federal Clean Water Mandates requiring that each town have a plan in place to deal with storm water oversight and have their code enforcement personnel trained to enforce the mandates of the code.
Last month at a town board meeting the Town Engineer for a week, Ransen Caola, P.E., provided the town board with a maze of information on the mandates North Greenbush and other towns face from the Federal Clean Water Act which is essentially enforced by the State. His knowledge of the engineering and legal implications as well as requirements was, according to those present, outstanding.
Basically North Greenbush must pass and implement legislation by the end of this year to comply with the Federal mandates. In order to enforce those mandates, town code officials must take training courses which are offered by the State in conjunction with county officials. Mr. Caola, the one person hired by the town who knows what he’s doing, knows with meticulous detail what he’s talking about, gave the presentation even after the Town Supervisor improperly fired him. Mr. Evers put the screws to his civil service paperwork and got him declared unqualified by the cooperative staff of the civil service commission in Troy after little more than a week on the job. Heaven knows, the last thing we want is someone in the Building Department that knows what they're doing. They might threaten the picnic that appears to be going on there with no management to watch the employees.
While the town has done nothing about passing the necessary legislation, it did have an opportunity to have its code enforcement people trained for $35.00 a person at HVCC this past Monday. Mr. Caola provided the Supervisor with the forms needed for folks to sign up, but the Supervisor didn’t bother to have the staff attend. In fact he posted nothing about the course. Naturally, nobody bothered to attend, leaving the town with no one who has a clue how to enforce the federal mandates. The boys were much more concerned about getting a couple of new trucks or “hot wheels” as we like to call them.
Today is May 11th meaning nearly half the year has passed with no one trained to enforce the Clean Water Act in North Greenbush. For $35 a person, they could all have been trained. It even included lunch. The fines imposed for not complying with the Federal law are a bit more expensive and include no free lunch. $35,000 a day, and Mr. Evers fires the one man he could have counted on to get the staff trained and the program implemented. Two more years?
3 comments:
If our supervisor fails to do his job why should the town residents have to pay the fines? He is the person who should pay. He already owes us $83K. Can he be sued for his lack of responsibility? What can we do?
MIKE MINERS AN ENGINEER-WE DON'T NEED ANY ONE ELSE-"GIMMY MY PAYOFF"
And the building department wonders why they have the reputation they do?
I do believe there are good, honest, decent people everywhere. Hence, there must be some of these people wihtin this corrupt department. Isn't there just one person within who will stand up, blow the whistle and lead our town toward an honest, respectable, hard working building department? We all have but once chance to go through this life. Someone within the department has the opportunity to make a difference, to be remembered for doing the right thing and for setting the example for everyone that corruption is wrong. I look forward to seeing who that one person (maybe two?) is who will come forward and make us all proud.
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