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Former commissioner demands retraction; commissioners and public debate landfill management
Summary
Former Commissioner Tony Macera challenged recent coverage that suggested mismanagement, prompting a public exchange with current commissioners about landfill finances, regulatory constraints and a pledge to bring in outside management for the landfill.
A former Lycoming County commissioner, Tony Macera, used the public-comment period Dec. 16 to ask the current board for a public apology and retraction of a county news article that he said wrongly accused past commissioners of mismanagement.
Macera defended past budgetary decisions and described efforts he said were taken to address long-term fiscal challenges, including work on the county'owned golf course, jail overcrowding and landfill operations. "To say mismanagement ... that was an insult," Macera said, recounting prior spending decisions and reforms.
A current commissioner (speaker 5) responded by clarifying that the "watchdog" remark referenced in media coverage was intended to call out specific landfill-management information problems rather than to impugn all past commissioners. The commissioner apologized "if in any way I offended you or any of the previous commissioners," and said the comment had stemmed from concerns about the landfill's reported finances and operations.
During the exchange, officials described technical and regulatory pressures on the landfill (including leachate-tank construction, capacity and hauling costs) and said the board had learned of withheld or unclear financial information during recent reviews. The current board announced it will bring in a private management company to operate the landfill going forward, citing the need for different management models to restore financial stability.
Online commenters submitted questions about a nondisclosure agreement signed by a former county administrator and asked about relationships between commissioners and outside landfill competitors; staff read several online comments into the record, and the board closed the public-comment period.
No formal vote resulted from the exchange; the discussion was recorded as part of the public-comment and board-response sections of the meeting.
