Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Dooley On Hot Seat and He's Starting to Feel It

County Executive Charlie Dooley is feeling the heat in regards to his non-functioning trash and recycling program.

First, a lawsuit has been filed to halt the County’s trash program. This is making its way through the legal system and could result in some additional changes.

Second, ASPEN withdrew their bid from the County as hauler for two districts previously announced. ASPEN’s attorney advised against proceeding stating the lawsuit has merit and advised against purchasing additional equipment to provide the service.

Third, Veolia is a huge, worldwide business with their home offices in Paris, France. Unfortunately, the company has a known record of corruption in many areas of the world to include the U. S. You can research information with an Internet search on “Veolia, corruption.” So this raises some ethical questions with many whether to do business with a company with this record or not.

Fourth, Veolia stands ready to start servicing District 3 as of July 1, but Veolia has jacked up their rates from just three weeks ago to subdivisions which opted out. Veolia has also increased charges to west county residents in Manchester/Ballwin area with a $3.50 fee to send a paper invoice.

Fifth, a subdivision trustee reports he made a general inquiry to Veolia on Monday, June 23 to obtain their current rates and received a quote of over $21.75 per month. It's felt if the county looses the lawsuit, Veolia will not even provide the service.

Sixth, Allied Waste, a hauler also selected by St. Louis County, was just purchased by another large waste company. So now Allied becomes a part of an even bigger company.

What's Mr. Dooley have to say about all this?

"The county counselor is my pick for county counselor," Dooley said. "Secondly, I have the utmost confidence in that individual. So when that individual's speaking for this county, she's speaking for me as the chief elected official of the county. And whatever she does has a hundred percent of my backing. If I didn't have any confidence in her, she wouldn't be here ... That's my responsibility. And I stand by it. With all of my directors, that's my responsibility. So don't fault her. It's a policy decision. It's my decision ... If you have a problem with that, you need to address it with me. Please do not ask my directors for their resignation without addressing me first."

"Our attorney's been an attorney for 25 years with the County Charter," Dooley said. "I would suggest to you that she has much more wise counsel than you have."

"I didn't know you were an attorney and you can actually evaluate wording because we've got an attorney that does it very well," Dooley told Diehl. "What you're saying is it's all right to charge people more for trash pickup when we can get a competitive bid ..." My second thought tonight is for you to just indicate that you have some kind of grasp of law is beyond me ... that because you can read it, you have a grasp of the law."Apparently, not the County Charter. If you did, you would know better.

And thirdly, on various occasions you have had the audacity to come before this council with some kind of cockamamie story about what you think is right and what we think is wrong ... To indicate that anybody on this council would do something that would not be in the best interest of the citizens of this county is ridiculous."

Hello?

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous6:10 PM

    I guess that is why they are calling him "Crazy Charlie"

    ReplyDelete