Dyster's Trash Cops Have 'SWEET' Deal Nothing To Do But 'Roll Round Golf Course all Day'

While there's no city ordinance on the books for trash inspectors to enforce - four inspectors remain on the city payroll.

Hired as temporary employees in the summer, stationed at the Hyde Park Golf Course, and reporting to DPW Director David Kinney, four city employees, using two city vehicles, have little to do because Mayor Paul A. Dyster's proposed trash ordinance - which these inspectors were hired to enforce - failed passage by the city council last July.

The ordinance remains in limbo and so do the inspectors, who continue to collect paychecks to enforce a law that does not exist.

Dyster named the trash inspection office, the Sanitation Waste Education and Enforcement Team, or, for short, SWEET. The SWEET crew was to have been empowered to track down residents who fail to properly recycle, or place too much refuse at the curb - and, first, educate them with a warning, then enforce the trash law by penalizing offenders. But the law does not yet exist.

It was all done backward.

Earlier in the year, the mayor purchased $2.3 million in totes using casino cash and, uniquely, reversed the standard sizes of the totes - making green recycling totes larger than blue refuse totes.

Without waiting to get a trash ordinance approved, he entered - with council approval - into a contract with Modern Disposal with financial penalties accruing to the city for violating collection procedures mandated by the new sizes of the totes.

Then Dyster staffed the SWEET division with four employees, described initially as seasonal employees.

Some say the Reporter is too negative and that, while we always point out problems with the administration of Mayor Paul Dyster (pictured smiling left), we never offer solutions. Well here’s one to solve the poorly executed Dyster trash plan: Everywhere you go in Niagara Falls, you are in danger of hitting potholes and ruining your car. Maybe Dyster should be commended for not fixing the thousands of potholes in Niagara Falls. Potholes can be handy garbage receptacles like this one on 16th St.!

Then lastly he wrote the ordinance and failed to get council approval to make it law.

Today, the city has the totes, a contract with Modern requiring the city to use the totes, four "temporary" employees, who have morphed into fulltime employees, and no trash ordinance.

When Dyster announced he was going to create the "temporary" trash inspector positions, the Reporter predicted Dyster would convert them into full time positions, which is what happened.

Meantime, Dyster miscalculated the costs. He initially said the city would save $500,000 per year with his plan. But he spent an additional $400,000 for six months with Modern over and above the contract to allow grass and leaf pickup and restoring several businesses that Dyster contracted with Modern to stop providing trash service.

Adding the cost of inspectors, the Dyster trash plan will be at least $1 million more than Dyster predicted.

The pre-Dyster plan in Niagara Falls allowed business and residents to dispose of any reasonable amount of trash weekly, which technically is still the law.

If the Dyster ordinance passes, residents would be limited to disposing of refuse that can fill one, 64 gallon tote per week. Most businesses, that for years had curbside service, were cut off by Dyster from curbside service and are now required to pay for their own dumpsters.

After taking away their trash services, Dyster proposed raising taxes on commercial properties by 7.7 percent this year.

Meantime four "trash inspectors" are looking for something to do.

Sweet!

While drastically limiting the amount of garbage residents in Niagara Falls can throw out, Mayor Paul Dyster supported the importing of 300,000 tons of garbage annually from New York City to Niagara Falls through the Covanta Niagara expansion.