Have You Seen This Missing, Multimillion Dollar Garbage Contract?
Town of Monroe Supervisor, Tony Cardone, has misplaced a $2M+ contract with Marangi Waste Management. Have you seen it?
“I’m a man. I don’t need to file a complaint when someone calls me a name.” That was Monroe Town Supervisor, Tony Cardone, at the May 6th, 2024 Town Board meeting to Village Trustee, John Karl.
As Monroe Gazette readers know, Mr. Cardone was, once again, lying to the public.
He explicitly sent a complaint to The Photo-News publisher, Jeanne Straus, because he did not like my reporting on his activities in that newspaper.
That brings us to something else the Town Supervisor may be lying about: The location of a multimillion dollar contract between the Town of Monroe and Marangi Waste Management.
Nobody can seem to find it.
That doesn’t mean Marangi is doing anything wrong. And it doesn’t mean the Town is doing anything wrong. But for a $2M+ contract to go “missing” on the Supervisor’s watch, he’s definitely doing something wrong.
If you look at the laws governing Towns in the State of New York, it’s the specific duty of the Supervisor “keep in his records, in such manner and form as the state department of audit and control may direct, a separate account with every appropriation for which funds are appropriated or raised by tax.”
The Supervisor isn’t a king in New York State.
They help the towns they serve to mind the money and make sure everything is accounted for. They’re not any more or less powerful than the other elected representatives in the Town.
Unfortunately, residents of the Town of Monroe live in a world where the Supervisor thinks he’s king.
In just the latest example, the Supervisor received a legal notice from the Village of Monroe, as well as additional complaints from the Village of Harriman, and failed to share this information with the rest of the Town Board.
Tonight, if you attend this evening’s board meeting, you’ll see the Board go into Executive Session to discuss the lack of transparency concerning Mr. Cardone withholding knowledge of these letters from the rest of the board.
Perhaps this is why Dorey Houle is Acting Supervisor today and Mr. Cardone won’t be present at the meeting …
We’ll talk about this issue in greater detail later this week, as well as how much money Supervisor Cardone withdraws from the Town of Monroe to compensate himself beyond his annual salary.
Let’s just say that, any land preservation tax passed by the Town of Monroe would not cost local taxpayers as much as Supervisor Cardone already costs them every year.
But first, let’s figure out what’s going on with this garbage contract …
The first public mention of a contract between the Town of Monroe and Marangi Waste Management comes in March of 2012.
Supervisor Harley Doles told the Times-Herald Record — back when Doles was still alive and the Times-Herald Record had actual local news in it — that Monroe had just started a five-year contract with Marangi. This comment came in the middle of a story about the Local 108 of the Laborers Union fighting for better terms in their contract with Marangi.
Interestingly, when asked what the cost of the garbage contract was for Monroe taxpayers, Sandy Leonard (serving as a full-time supervisor alongside Doles for very corrupt and stupid reasons), insisted the THR file a FOIL to get that information.
Doles “helpfully” claimed that the new contract was saving Monroe taxpayers money. Something that’s impossible to know without first knowing what’s in the actual contract.
But that was par for the course for the Town of Monroe under Harley Doles. Something Tony Cardone, and United Monroe, campaigned on to unseat Doles and company.
Of course, Cardone and United Monroe didn’t fix anything. They made things way worse in the end. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
In July of 2018, after the contract under Doles expired, Supervisor Tony Cardone voted alongside the rest of the town board to accept the RFP (Request For Proposal) from Marangi for a new, five year contract which would expire at the end of 2023.
This video should be set up to take you to 48:45 where the Monroe Town Board votes on the contract extension. And here is the resolution the Town voted on. Note the 2024 claim of no increase …
2022-#386
BE IT RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Monroe Made a Motion to extend the Refuse Contract with Marangi. Current contract expires at the end of 2023. Allowed to extend it up till 2028. five year renewal rates based on original contract.
Five year Renewal Rates:
- 2022: $31.82/unit
- 2023: $32.30/unit (rate increase of .48/unit)
- 2024/2025: $32.30 (no increase)
- 2026: $33.11 (.81 increase cap on consumer price index associated with that)
- same for 2027/2028
New contract will run from January-December.
Motion by Supervisor -Tony Cardone, second by Sal Scancarello.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Aye: Supervisor -Tony Cardone, Mary Bingham, Sal Scancarello, Dorey Houle
A few months later, Anthony Completo died.
Completo was the Major Accounts Representative for Marangi. The September 27th, 2022 Town of Monroe Board meeting opened with a moment of silence for Completo. This moment of silence was then followed by comments from Supervisor Cardone, about Completo, where he said, ““Tony was our representative from Marangi, taking care of the garbage. He negotiated a contract as recently as July, which, for the next two years, has a zero percent increase.”
Now, this was (yet again) another lie. Because as you can see above from the resolution Mr. Cardone passed in July of 2022, there was an increase from $31.82 per unit to $32.30 per unit in 2023.
That’s not Mr. Completo’s fault. That’s Mr. Cardone’s for again lying to the public.
Who’s fault it is for the increase in garbage fees in 2024 is not yet clear.
What we do know is that, going into 2024, the Town of Monroe put out a statement concerning restrictions on garbage pickup by Marangi in the Town and Villages of Harriman and Monroe.
Essentially, the Town and Villages exceeded the amount of garbage agreed to with Marangi for pickup. So, all of a sudden, in the first year of a promise by Cardone that there was no increase in cost of garbage pickup to Monroe residents, services were reduced.
In Marangi’s defense, they told the Village of Monroe in a meeting that they had picked up 851 tons of garbage within the garbage district in April of 2023. 670 was, historically, what the company picked up around this time each year.
But what’s not in anyone’s favor is that no one can find the contract to refer back to how disputes like this should be handled.
The increase in garbage comes from a few sources:
-The Town continuing to approve short term rentals despite lacking sufficient code enforcement officers to protect the neighbors near those rentals.
The Town has also rebuffed requests by the Village to explore making the Village co-terminus with the Town sort of like how it is in Woodbury. This would allow residents of both the Town and Village to have Monroe Village Police be able to patrol the entire town and help with code enforcement and other nuisance complaints. This request was rebuffed by Cardone, leaving much of Monroe without a police presence or code enforcement presence.
-A deliberate attempt by some bad actors utilizing a modern (and less racist) form of what used to be called “blockbusting.” Basically, the property owners who are renting out the property, or just owning it straight out, are intentionally letting the property turn into a dump so that people around it will get angry and sell their home. This in turn makes it easier for those bad actors to scoop up land and property for a bargin. Some of these property owners have also taken to packing way more people into area homes than can safely live there, which has led to a sharp uptick in garbage output from what was single family residences.
-Residents in both the Town and Village not following directions on how to dispose of their garbage properly. Each home is allowed two 35 gallon cans per pickup. If you have more than the two cans, you’re supposed to negotiate a fee with Marangi directly for them to come handle the extra trash. (This is something recently discussed by the Village at their May 7th meeting.)
As Monroe Village Mayor, Neil Dwyer, said at the February 8th, 2024 meeting: “The concern that I have is, what were you picking up, what are you picking up, where are you picking it up. Because one of the things we can find out is, and we have actually found properties that are benefitting from the garbage district that shouldn’t be. If you are a multi-family home, legally or illegally, and you are getting the residential pickup, maybe you’re not supposed to be.”
So, Where’s The Contract?
According to Village Mayor Neil Dwyer, he attended a meeting at Monroe Town Hall and asked to see the original contract and the subsequent addendums added to it. For example, the 2022 renewal.
The mayor was told during this meeting that the Town has the contract, but they didn’t have a copy handy right then and there to provide it. The Town said it would get a copy and provide it to the Mayor, which never happened.
In reviewing Village records, the Mayor did find a contract that was provided to them, at some point, by the town; however, it was not the original contract. The original contract is what everyone is looking for.
According to Councilwoman Maureen Richardson, she stated that she has directly reached out to Marangi to ask for the original contract. The original apparently dates back to 1990. Marangi told her that they would try to locate it, which they have not (at this time) been able to do so.
At the May 6th, 2024 Town of Monroe Board meeting, the Town Board voted to request Marangi produce a current “scope of service” document. This document would include in it the details that Mayor Dwyer has asked for concerning tonnage and how disagreements would be sorted between Marangi and the Town. The only thing the town is in possession of are the contract renewals.
Marangi informed Councilwoman Richardson that they were surprised the Town did not have a copy of the contract available. (The town should absolutely have a copy.)
Councilwoman Richardson has asked Supervisor Cardone specifically to locate his copy of the contract. Like I said at the start of this article, it’s his obligaiton as Supervisor to keep track of these things.
Instead of emailing back a response to Councilwoman Richardson explaining where the contract is, Supervisor Cardone replied with a snide remark.
But I guess a snide remark is better than flat out hiding news of a potential lawsuit from your fellow Town council members.
Meanwhile, in the Village, they are discussing creating a garbage district of their own in order to simplify this process, which would require a possible referendum.
I’ll let you know if anything develops concerning this contract. In the interim, I hope Supervisor Cardone enjoys his day off, while everyone else continues their tireless work on behalf of the people of this town.