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Topic: Is Flint mobbed up like Detroit
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Henry also noted how the sanitation division, as well as other departments, frequently worked with limited personnel. In order to complete routes, wrote henry, crews often have to do more than one route and that made the distance and transport time major criteria.

Angelo showed two bids between Citizens and City Management in which Citizens was the lowest bid, "under various city calculations, the final proposal cost is unclear", wrote Angelo.

Ready stated manpower changes in the sanitation division within the last three years was one reason why the formula had to be reconsidered.""

"Now we have fewer employees so overtime is a bigger issue.

J Bennett Jones also resigned from the evaluation committee.

Angelo wrote how this was not the first time a "stink" has been raised over a city trash contract. She brought up the 1992 attempt to steer the compost contract to City Management and Pollard landfill.
Post Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:11 pm 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

While the Charter does not allow council interference with employees, the anxious employees always find a way to communicate problems the administration does not address to the council.

These communications were sent to many individuals. Typed as written.

"To Whom it may Concern:

As of March 1st, 1998 the city of Flint Waste Collection Department has been hauling its garbage to the Brent Run Landfill. Since then we have run into some unfavorable incidents and downfalls that we've never dealt with before. For the first 2 or 3 months we had terrible time getting to and from the dump sites once inside the landfill. That is to say that the road leading to these sites were tearing up our equipment. Then once the trucks got to the sights, which were very small and restricted areas, on the very tip of the hill.


Last edited by untanglingwebs on Tue Dec 12, 2017 9:02 am; edited 1 time in total
Post Tue Dec 12, 2017 7:39 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Most of the breakdowns are recorded below, as you will see, required extensive repair and manpower. Lately, the situation has been getting better, but we still have a numerous amount of obstacles at this landfill. The brent Run landfill closes sharply at 5:00 p.m. If your vehicle is not on or passe the "scales" at 5:00 p.m., you will not be allowed to dump. Now this creates a problem when it comes to a compost route, consisting of 4 "maps", ach maps equaling 1 regular garbage route area.Some crews do not get done in time to go to this landfill in time, which is quite a distance away This creates an even worse problem when it comes to a garbage rte. being worked on overtime. The trucks end up loaded the net day. This creates a problem for the crews using these trucks that day. We have had 2 trucks stopped by the State Police, and the crews were given tickets. 1 of these tickets could have been avoided, but the other was not avoidable, since there is no way to check our weight on these vehicles. As it was was this truck was only 3/4 loaded!
Post Tue Dec 12, 2017 7:56 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

The Brent Run Landfill accepts tires, but they want to charge us $3.00 per tire.

The landfill does not accept brush, like we have ha since the storm, inJune. We are still picking this brush up and are still having trouble getting rid of it.

The landfill itself is very dusty and dry. They seldom water or oil the roads to keep down the dust.

There is hydraulic fluid on the asphalt leading to the dump site inside the landfill. The drivers have complained about the road being slippery and dangerous.

We are using double the fuel traveling to and from the landfill/
Post Tue Dec 12, 2017 8:05 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Now construction has started on I-75 from Pierson Rd. to the city of Saginaw. Although there are alternate routes, what happens in the case of accidents,inclement weather, or possible construction on these roads.

Before we were forced to travel to the Brent Run Landfill, a report was made describing the inevitable problems we would endure taking these trucks to this landfill. It was given to each council member in January or February of 1998.

At first the landfill was charging us by the weight of the truck. Now every truck that goes to this landfill is charged $138.00, no matter what the weight.
Post Tue Dec 12, 2017 8:16 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

3-18-98 Truck 5024- brakes locked up and flat tire at landfill, due to mud.

3-19-98 All trucks stuck in mud, trucks pulled up and down hill at landfill.

3-19-98 truck 5019 had both steps and all bottom rear lights torn off due to condition
of road at landfill.

3-20-98 truck 5020 had 2 brake chambers broken off at landfill.

truck 5008 was tuck at landfill couldn't move up or down.

truck 5003 had a flat tire on freeway after leaving landfill.

both trucks 5020 and 5025 had their exhaust pipes pulled apart, at
landfill.
Post Tue Dec 12, 2017 8:27 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

4-6-98 Truck 5004 had the bumper destroyed at landfill

7-11-98 truck 5005 had blowout on Vienna Rd, on way to landfill. The hub ring came of and struck a vehicle, and the incident was reported to police.

7-15-98 truck 5013 had flat tire at landfill.
Post Tue Dec 12, 2017 8:32 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

4-30-98

On Thursday,April 30th, at about 2:00 p.m., waste collectors Jim Wruck and Phillip Matthews returned from the Brent Run landfill in Montrose and proceeded to tell me a very disturbing story.They said that when they got to the top of the landfill, they were directed to back in between two trucks that were already backed up to dump. As they got out they noticed that a worker from a "City Disposal" truck was wearing a mask. As Wruck and Matthews undid their turn buckles, they noticed bags and barres coming out of the truck net to them. On the bags were printed the words- "Danger-Asbestos". They said the stuff was blowing all over. I immediately informed my supervisor, Bruce Blackmon. I also had Mr.Wruck and Mr. matthews fill out the incident reports and took them to the Emergency Medical Clinic on Ballenger Hwy. They n turn sent them to Hurley Hospital.

I found out that Ivan Goodlow had dumped his truck right after Wruck and Matthews. I immediately sent him to the hospital for checking. I was told shortly after, a mechanic, Denver, had changed all of the tires.
Post Tue Dec 12, 2017 8:53 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Cheboygan Daily Tribune, July 27, 1993

The Offensive, Odorous Underbelly of Trash
by
Stephen P. Dresch
Newspapers statewide have been filled for several months with reports of mob activity and political chicanery in the Michigan trash business. Particularly riveting stories have come from Warren, where in 1991 the city's former trash hauler, Oakland Disposal, Inc., after its equipment was vandalized and its transfer station was firebombed, was replaced through a no-bid $16 million city contract with Warren Waste Transfer, a company established only a few weeks earlier, supposedly by Quirino D'Alessandro, a crony of Mayor Ronald Bonkowski.

In fact, D'Alessandro, who has been indicted on federal fraud charges as part of a continuing investigation of illegal gambling and money laundering and whose $1.5 million house has been seized by the Secret Service, was fronting for trash baron Anthony Soave, who, it turns out, owns Warren Waste Transfer. The confessed Oakland Disposal arsonist, small-time hood John Pree, now testifies that he and his accomplice, Carlo Bommarito, got the order to vandalize Oakland Disposal's equipment and firebomb its transfer station from Detroit mob boss Vito Giacalone. Pree, Bommarito and Bommarito's father, Francesco, a longtime Giacalone associate, have been charged with arson and conspiracy.*

Although Soave has had previous links to Detroit mob figures (including an early 1970s partnership with Frank Mudaro, described in 1963 U.S. Senate hearings as a section leader in the Detroit Mafia; earlier, Mudaro had been a business partner of William "Black Bill" Tocco, one of the five ruling dons of the Detroit Mafia), Soave's underlings dismiss Pree's sworn testimony as ludicrous. However, Soave clearly has profited from the demise of Oakland Disposal. In addition to his Warren contracts, Soave has acquired other trash-related businesses from Oakland Disposal's former owners, brothers John and Robert Runco, and City Management is currently trying to get permits to reopen Oakland Disposal's former landfill in Waterford Township.

But, we need not go to the Detroit metropolitan area to observe the questionable dealings of Anthony Soave. In late 1991 Soave's City Management Corp. acquired for $3.8 million a landfill jointly owned by Crawford and Otsego Counties, although another bidder had offered about 50 percent more (and a 50 percent larger environmental clean-up fund). The deal was worked out by the landfill authority's lawyer, James Cotant, who, interestingly, had been a high-school classmate of Soave's director of landfill operations, Paul Sgriccia. Not coincidentally, Soave simultaneously paid $800,000 for the local trash-hauling business of Robert McLachlan, then-chairman of the Crawford County Board of Commissioners responsible for negotiating the landfill sale on behalf of the counties; McLachlan and his son were also given long-term employment contracts by City Management.

Prior to its acquisition by Soave, the Crawford-Otsego landfill had accumulated about $1 million in fines levied by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources for violation of environmental laws. Shortly after Soave's purchase, representatives of City Management, the DNR and the Attorney Generalmet in the Lansing office of Senator John Pridnia (R-Hubbard Lake) and, under the watchful eye of Pridnia aide Mark Knudsen, negotiated the waiver of all but $200,000 of these fines (with the understanding that this $200,000 would not be paid to the state but would instead be spent on recycling in Crawford and Otsego counties; much of the expenditure to date has been for capital equipment). To meet in a legislator's office and to include a legislative staff member in the negotiations was unprecedented, but a DNR officer's objections were overruled. Perhaps not surprisingly, Pridnia has been the beneficiary of the financial largess of Soave's political action committee, City PAC.

After heading Michigan's unsuccessful search for a site for a low-level radioactive waste dump to serve a compact of midwest states, in 1991 James Cleary returned to the DNR as deputy director, in charge of solid waste regulation. When Crawford County Commissioner Joe Callewaert objected to the behind-the-scenes circumstances under which Soave's City Management had acquired the Crawford-Otsego landfill, Cleary asked for Callewaert's documentation, received it, and promised "a complete and thorough investigation." Less than five months later Cleary had accepted the Pridnia-negotiated waiver of fines on the landfill, taken early retirement from the DNR and joined Soave as a City Management officer (a position for which Pridnia claims to have recommended him). Perhaps not surprisingly, nothing was heard of Cleary's promised investigation.

Supposedly, there was to be no conflict between Cleary's new position with City Management and his previous role as deputy director of Michigan's DNR because Cleary would be working for City Management's Florida subsidiary, Universal Waste and Transit. However, answering an early 1993 call to Universal Waste's Tampa headquarters, the receptionist initially didn't even know who Cleary was and ultimately advised the caller to contact Cleary at City Management's Detroit headquarters. About the same time, a Lansing lobbyist for the solid waste industry observed that Cleary was regularly in Michigan and was "invaluable to the industry because of his influence" over his former DNR colleagues.

Soave's political affairs are handled by the ex-mayor of Flint, James Sharp, hired by Soave on the advice of the former speaker of the state House of Representatives, Gary Owen (D-Ypsilanti), who recommended Sharp as "a minority that could work in local government in the Detroit area." Reflecting the northern expansion of City Management's interests, Soave recently retained the lobbying services of former state Senator Mitch Irwin (D-Sault Ste. Marie). After the Alpena County Commission rejected a reciprocal solid-waste agreement proposed Crawford County which would have been of obvious benefit to City Management, Irwin called individual Alpena commissioners to chastise them for not granting carte blanche approval of City Management's participation in Alpena County's legally-required 20-year solid waste plan.

Probing the malodorous underbelly of trash, criminal and political, one does, certainly, discover interesting bedfellows.
Post Tue Dec 12, 2017 9:01 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Tony Soave came to find out that Kwame Kilpatrick
was actually holding onto this contract, and Tony Soave was
getting worried. He was getting worried because he had
employees, he told you, that were waiting to start. He said he
was going to lose millions of dollars if this thing kept
getting held, and people, Detroiters, were going to lose their
jobs. So he took the measure of actually making an appointment
to talk to Mayor Kilpatrick. He had a personal meeting with
him on April 23rd, 2002, and he said to the mayor, he said,
"You know, what's the holdup?" I think those were his words,
"What's the holdup?"

And Mayor Kilpatrick didn't say, "What holdup, what
are you talking about?" He said, "You have the wrong
subcontractor . "

Mr. Soave testified he said, "Who's the right one?"

Kwame Kilpatrick told him, "Bobby Ferguson."

That's the first time that Mr. Soave, Tony Soave,
ever heard the name Bobby Ferguson, and he was asked about this
because he ended up making a switch.

He was asked, "What did you think the mayor was
saying about having the wrong subcontractor?" And he
testified, he said, "I thought if I didn't put Ferguson on my
job, I didn't take out Charlie Williams," the contractor that
he already had lined up, "the mayor was not going to release



10-CR-20403 USA v. Kwame Kilpatrick, et al


Government 's Closing
Monday, February 11, 2013

The contract . "

Tony Soave didn't need Bobby Ferguson. He had
Charlie Williams, the former director of the entire DWSD,
someone that Soave eventually did mentor into having a
multi-million dollar company, but he had to kick him out. He
didn't want to lay off employees, he didn't want to lose
millions .

Kathleen McCann, she testified, and she was clear as
a bell. She testified 1368 was stuck in the mayor's office.
They were going to have to lay people off, she testified, and
she talked to Tony Soave after he had the meeting with
Mayor Kilpatrick. Soave told her, "Williams out, Ferguson in."
And she described her relationship with Ferguson, the
relationship of Inland with Ferguson, as a forced marriage,
forced by the mayor of the city.
Post Thu Dec 13, 2018 8:52 am 
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