Yesterday’s Hartford Clean Up Day was very successful with over 50 people and 10 pickup trucks participating.

This year we had an EWaste Collection day for the first time. This response far exceeded anything we anticipated. For a town the size of Hartford, the EWaste people dropped off 3 pallets and 3 Gaylords (4 foot tall heavy cardboard box on a pallet).

Greg Brown is supposed to call the EWaste people and inform them how much room they should reserve on the large panel truck when they do their pick up. Greg is going to tell them we need the entire truck.

There are two stacked rows of electronics in the highway garage each about 4 feet wide by 40′ long. We anticipate we have collected about 8 pallets and 14 Gaylords worth of electronics.

A few cars showed up packed to the brim with televisions and there are some TV’s that are unbelievably large and will not even fit on a pallet.

Next year’s Ewaste collection day will undoubtably be smaller because most of the town’s electronics stash is now sitting in the Highway garage.

Regards, Dana

On Monday April 15th and Tuesday April 16th from 6:30 pm to 10 pm there will be training taking place in the back lot of the Hartford firehouse simulating an ethanol tanker fire.

The Washington County Haz-Mat team is stationed out of the Hartford firehouse.

NYS Office of Fire Protection and Control will be bringing in their flammable combustible liquids training truck. This is a tractor trailer tanker mocked up as an ethanol tanker. They will be able to set it on fire over and over again so that the firefighters can tackle different scenarios.

During this live burn training, there will be times of considerable fire load as well as heavy smoke which may be seen from some distance, this could cause concern for citizens not aware of the training since we are in the “burn ban” season, so please help spread the word.

Regards, Dana

On Friday April 19th, Washington County Board of Supervisors will vote to approve a settlement in Hartford’s lawsuit against the County over the Eldridge Lane landfill property in order to avoid a May 4th Washington County Supreme Court hearing on the matter. The Town already approved this settlement this past Tuesday.

In 2011, when I first looked into it, the County had mysteriously stopped making all payments to the Town and School for the previous 6 years.

Since I raised the issue in 2011, the County has paid $126,000 to the Town and School in back payments for PILOT (Payment In Lieu Of Taxes).

The details of this $126,000 received to date are;
Back PILOT payments to the Town paid 2011 = $15,581
Back PILOT payments to the School paid 2011 = $55,309
2012 January scheduled PILOT payment to Town = $3,116
2012 September scheduled PILOT payment to School = $9,218
2013 January scheduled PILOT payment to Town = $3,116

The proposed settlement of the lawsuit will provide the Town an additional lump sum of $40,000 and insure a $4,000 payment annually in lieu of taxes to the town for as long as the County still owns the land.

The Town will now take over maintenance control of the road. We are doing this because this would be the only dirt road maintained by the county and most likely would be poorly maintained. It is in the best public safety interest of those citizens living on Eldridge Lane to have the town maintain the road. Besides, once the County sells the land, the County will no longer be the largest land owner on the road and it is only natural that the town maintain it.

Now that this lawsuit will be settled, I will shift focus to get the County to sell the 485 acres of land and get it back onto the tax rolls where it belongs.

Regards, Dana

The USPS has announced the new hours of operation for the counter service which will take effect on 5/4/13.

The weekday counter service will be reduced from 8 hrs per day to 4 hrs per day. Saturday counter service will be unchanged.

Effective 5/4/13 the hours will be;

Weekday counter hours 11am-1pm (lunch break 1pm-230pm) 230pm-430pm
Saturday counter hours 8am-1130am

Weekday PO Box lobby will be open 8am-5pm
Saturday PO Box lobby will be open 8am-12noon.

The PO Box lobby mail will be in the mail slots by 1pm M-F and 1030am Saturday.

Dana

As of 4/22/13, Earth Waste & Metal will operate the 5 facilities 6 days per week.
M-F 8am-4pm and Sat 8am-1pm

For the first 30 days of operations a County worker will be onsite with the new private employees to act as a transition person and also to collect the stickers.

You will still be able to use the stickers for full face value, same price as before on your bags until they run out. One sticker $2.25 per bag as current price.

The stations want to use up these stickers quickly so if you have extra stickers in your hand they want you to redeem them at the stations and will pay you cash for them. For example if you show up with 10 extra stickers in your hand a worker will give you $22.50 cash.

Or you can go to the WashCo Treasurer’s office and also redeem them for face value. There is no expiration at the Treasurers office so if you live out of county, and have a camper for instance you can redeem them a year from now at the Treasurer’s office.

It is important to use up any stickers or redeem them ASAP because Earth Waste Metal will soon install scales, even bag scales where you will pay per pound for your bags. The new operator mentioned that he thought the price per bag kitchen waste would be around 15 cents per pound.

On 4/22/13 the Stations will start accepting cash or plastic payment. You will no longer need any stickers once you deplete your supply. The new operator hopes that there will not be any stickers used at the stations much beyond the first 30 days of operation. You will perform a “pay as you throw” and will not need to join a membership, etc.

The Town of Hartford Town Clerk will not sell any stickers beyond 4/20/13. The Town will not redeem any stickers as these should be used up at the Stations.

The stations will continue to run as they are now with the same separation of recyclables but with the following changes;
1) White goods like refrigerators, stoves and appliances will now be accepted as free disposal.
2) Large quantity of newspaper, cardboard, etc. over 500 lbs they will pay you for it. This should revive the old practice of boyscouts, etc. collecting newspapers to raise money.
3) The Stations will be open 6 days per week instead of 3 days.
4) Since they will offer more services, they expect to employ more persons than the County currently does. The workers will be on private payroll instead of County payroll.

Dana