This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Bankrupt Cities Seek Crowdfunding For Garbage
Want to fund your "grilled cheesus" project? Need money to continue your "edible cup" business? Kickstarter is the platform of choice. But now, with the muni bond market suffering from outflows in retail funds and bankruptcies mounting across the nation, cities are increasingly turning to 'crowd-funding'. As Bloomberg reports, Central Falls (which filed for bankruptcy 2 years ago) is using Citizinvestor to seek $10,044 in funds for 5 new trash cans. "Even with attractive yields, there aren't a lot of people lining up to get involved with places that have gone through bankruptcy," as the initiative has raised $295 so far...
Via Bloomberg Brief,
Central Falls, the Rhode Island city that filed for bankruptcy two years ago, is seeking to finance a park project through a crowdfunding website rather than the municipal-bond market.
The city of about 19,000 wants $10,044 to put five trash cans in Jenks Park, which is currently “littered with garbage and debris," according to the campaign on the website Citizinvestor, a site where residents can fund municipal projects. The initiative so far has $295 through 11 donations.
The decision to circumvent capital markets may foreshadow similar steps by other cities when they exit court protection, such as San Bernardino and Stockton in California and Detroit, which filed a record municipal bankruptcy in July.
“Even with attractive yields, there aren’t a lot of people lining up to get involved with places that have gone through bankruptcy," said Gene Gard, who helps oversee $1.3 billion of munis at Dupree & Co. in Lexington, Kentucky. “The people there are probably doing the right thing -- they’re not trying to take more aggressive or higher-yielding financing."
During its 13 months under court protection, Central Falls moved from “pain to a sincere hope,” U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Frank Bailey said at a September 2012 court hearing in Providence, the state capital. The Chapter 9 case was the quickest municipal-debt adjustment for a city in U.S. history, he said.
Central Falls maintained debt-service payments even as it became the first city in Rhode Island history to enter bankruptcy in 2011. The court-approved exit plan called for full repayment to bondholders while employee pensions are cut.
Moody’s rates Central Falls B1, four steps below investment grade. The city has about $12.4 million of bonds outstanding. Central Falls’ proposal would finance “high quality steel bins" that wouldn’t spill trash in the park. The Citizinvestor campaign site said the city would work with the Steel Yard, a local nonprofit that makes functional public sculptures.
Crowdfunding websites have been used to raise pools of cash for startups and small businesses. They include Kickstarter, which in 2011 successfully funded a project that would build in Detroit a life-size monument of RoboCop, a fictional cyborg from the 1987 film with the same name.
»
- 10710 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
The only garbadge that needs disposed of is on Wall Street.
How about the dipshits "managing" these cities?
From the makers of the $500 hammer and $1,000 toilet seat comes the latest thing in trash collection. The $2,000 trash can !!!
Face meet palm
Ironically, Detroit is going to need real, not statue, Robocops in the near future.
Huh, so there were municipal defaults after all - Meredith just had the temerity to say it out loud.
If they opened a government run prostitution center, kind of like Amsterdam's Red Light District, with central billing/payment area, they would earn the $10k within an hour.
I can build you that shit with wood and sheet metal for a tenth of the price.
I think you underestimate the power of government to screw up anything - including screwing.
The state of Nevada proved you right in that they couldn't turn a profit from running "The Mustang Ranch" (which is/was a brothel!)
"$10,044 to put five trash cans in Jenks Park"
Gov't ridiculousness exposed for all to see. Of course it doesn't cost $10k for 5 trash cans! If they wanted 5 trash cans, people could donate the trash cans, NOT the money!
There are two ways to make a budget, and the gov't will only tell you about the first way: to take the current budget and to slash 2% here, 1% here, remove this or that program, increase taxes etc.
The other way is called clean slate budgeting. You start with EVERYTHING off the table, including entitlements, 'defence' expenditures, and interest payments.
You don't understand. There has to be a concrete foundation for the can to sit on, a metal device set into the concrete to secure the can to, union workers to stand around during installation of the can, special park trash cans picked from a municipal supply catalog. I'm actually surprised they can do it for $2k each.
Questions: What happend to the old trash cans? Or did there used to be no trash even without trash cans? Once installed, will the trash throwers use the trash cans or just throw trash on the ground like before?
What happened to the old populace ... you know, the ones that didn't just scatter dey McDonald's 'n purple drank cans on the lawn.
That's what people my age still get to call 'grandpa' for a few years, and they're at the end of their time. And so ends an age, without anyone taking notice. Thanks for bringing it up.
"You don't understand."
Craigslist.
Steel garbage cans for the park ask -> $175, offer ->$100
http://providence.craigslist.org/atq/4056967029.html
Garbage can --Free
http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/zip/4098398763.html
Go buys some plastic bags at Family Dollar or Walmart. ->$100
Call the Warden at the state prison and get some of those fucking monkeys to clean the park every week. ->$1.25/hr
Understand that.
Over.
I hope you're not angry with me. I'm just explaining how an inefficient government bureaucracy sees things. It should go without saying that a private individual with initiative can do the job faster, better and for less cost.
Lol. relax man.
Detroit just needs to start producing the 6000 SUX and the city is saved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl8mQhxhE_Q
It is probably 200-300 for a trash can (made in China) and 1700-1800 for (highly skilled) installation labor cost in the US of A.
Hey... don't forget...
yous gotta have highly-skilled union-wage Sanitation Engineers to empty those trash cans!
Not exactly highly skilled...just a bunch of dreadlocked hipsters with a mig welder....and a dream.
Steel Yard...what a crock of hippy dippy shit.
http://www.thesteelyard.org/customwork/publicprojects
"wants $10,044 to put five trash cans in Jenks Park" ($2k cans?)
Behrens 1270 31-Gallon Trash Can with Lid - $36.79
well I guess this explains why they went backrupt in the first place
Henry "Butch" Konietzky, 59, was crabbing in Halifax River when he was exposed to vibrio vulnificus, a bacterium normally found in warm seawater, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal.
"I am actually really shocked," nearby resident Kamryn Eversole told WFTV, ABC News' affiliate in Orlando and Daytona Beach, Fla. "I'm in this water all the time and I guess I would have been more careful if I had known this earlier."
http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/florida-man-dies-bacterial-infectio...
Crabbing in the river? Is that one of them new experimental sex perversion things? Serves him right!
There's probably some CFR rules governing acceptable trash receptacles that are not harmful to the indigineous abode deprived street dwellers, aka the Hairy Chested Nut Scratcher.
Either that or the garbage can supplier is the brother-in-law of the council president.
Exactly right on second guess....
See my post with link above.
Trash cans don't have to be nor should be "art".
Cities that can manage their shit can't afford art trash cans.
They wont be there an hour before they are stolen
The U.S. Senate. The 200,000 "people" working in the intelligence industry spying on Americans.
I want crowdfunding to install a ball pit in my office! We're a young 21st century startup in the emerging field of charitable microfinance (i.e., making very little money)!
http://www.fakenation.info/please/the-new-fascist-aesthetic
Yay, fascism AND rainbows! Two favorites, together!
Great site. About time someone started open conflict with hipster horseshit.
Officially on my list of sites to read.
That some expensive TRASH cans, bra.
Why don't they "can" a couple of lard-arses over at city hall, and use that money to do something useful?
At this point it's time for governments to admit they are total failures, quit collecting taxes, fade away and let the people rule themselves.
Good luck with that.....
why not just take it from the producers? we do so in Europe.
and than we also pay a general tax for our garbage and another citytax for our garbage and than the producers also raise the price of products.
like that 3 groups win and only 1 group loses multiple times!
Are you from the past? The words ‘than’ and ‘then’ diverged long ago. (They were the same word orginally according to my dictionary.)
It's impolite to criticize the grammar of non-native English speakers. I can understand what he (she?) is saying just fine.
It's his style
There's something we need for a bankrupt city. A life sized monument to Robocop. That's setting priorities right there.
How about a statue outside the Federal Reserve with a big cock going up the ass of the American taxpayer?
Just replace Washington with Hamilton..
Oh man that was a good one. Made my Monday. Um, not that I enjoy that sort of thing.
What I want to know is, did the Panamanian banks re-open as they were scheduled to?
...and are they still using USD?
looks like a govt troll down arrowed you for that
Paid Hasbara.
Oy Vey!!! Watch out.
the backdoor never closed. everything but the paper is gone.
it's a bit like fort knox. the doors are closed for a century and all what's left is paper.
I cant verify it since I dont bank with them but their website says they did. And while I dont trust every website, you would think someone would mention if it was down when the bank said it was not
The message was on the site below (its in Spanish)
https://www.banconal.com.pa/
in the good old days, the mob managed garbage collecting and turned it into a profitable enterprise...
and than in 2000 all the cities sold the rights and now they can even afford 5 trashcans anymore...
2000 per trashcan... not bad... just imagine you had to empty 50 trashcans per week, 4 times per month for 100k... it would take you about 4 hours per week max...
Bake sales. City hall office furniture and equipment on eBay and Craigs list. Warrants for overdue library books. Rental fees on parolee ankle bracelets. Tent jails. Chain gang road crews. Pink boxers.
Oh wait...
www.govdeals.com
$10,000 for 5 trashcans. Uh-huh. The beat goes on.
Dig a pit for $500. Or have a "clean up the park" day. Give citizens who volunteer to do this kind of thing a modest break on their property taxes.
The unions would never permit that kind of common sense. But I don't think the Internet is going to fund their vision.
Performance-based incentives are not to be discussed. They might make under-performing people look bad. It sounds to me like you don't care about equality.
And for those of you who don't get it..../sarc.
Or better yet, just make prisoners earn the costs of their own incarceration. Oh wait, that constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in Liberalland.
10K for 5 trash cans!
Insane.
There's always the India option. Toss your trash on the ground.
Ah yes I see the problem. You are thinking a trash can costs, say, $25, right? But you are not taking into account any hedonic adjustments, which would slightly increase the cost to a modest $2000. Makes perfect sense as long as you dont think about it
You see their is where they've got it wrong, I mean if the public were to do it would cost, what? $295 but wait a mo. in private hands, with compound interest, invested in 4 or 5 project meetings with at least 2 consultants to make sure we're getting value for money, its ... all gone, 10K ching, next... I think we've seen this before.
Lagos, Nairobi, Baltimore, and Kinshasa feel insulted that you left them out.
Want to bet they are some decorative can or concrete deisgned to take a beating?
10K for 5 trash cans!
Insane.
There's always the India option. Toss your trash on the ground.
Yep, NOO YAWK has done that many times,oh the smell of it!.
$10,044 for 5 garbage cans says all you need to know. I can get 10 for $295.00. Bankrupt dufus a##ho### -
When I was a kid, the parks used steel barrels for trash cans. They only cost about $40 each (slightly better than $2000 for Central Falls) and actually held trash. Idle speculation on my part, but maybe spending $2000 for each trash can is why they are bankrupt. Oh wait, it's Rhode Island. I suppose you have to pay $2000 per can if you don't want to end up in one at the bottom of Providence harbor
You guys seem to overlook the fine print. The cans don't cost two grand apiece, but the biodegradable liners cost two grand. The cans come free.
So, the city collects money for "trash cans," then uses most of it to channel arms for Assad to help him gas his own people, and who is secretly hiding the passengers kidnapped from the plane that was swapped for a cruise missile that hit the Pentagon on 9/11, and simultaneously is testing a prototype spaceship based on the Roswell alien craft...
LOL, try to keep up. UFOs were always experimental military craft. Everyone older than 12 always knew that to be the case.
Yep absolutely true; the Foo Fighters are not just a band.
$10k for 5 trash cans? Are they gold plated tungsten?
Anyone who buys into that offer has been hit on the head by a few too many chunks of blue ice from high flying aircraft...
The trash cans are $20 Walmart specials; it's all the surveillance equipment and customized glory holes for park police that adds the extra $1,980-ish to the price tag...
As a coffee importer/roaster, the edible cup was my idea!
Mine was styrofoamy and tasted like donuts.
The project died when I stopped taking drugs.
I should have kept taking drugs until crowdfunding was invented.
Then i'd be RICH!
Back in high school, a friend of mine had a trash route. Rural neighborhoods used steel barrels for their trash. We took the dump truck around and picked up trash every week. We would go around collecting money every month. Then it was ON. We terrorized every lake campground and beach within 300 miles until the money was all drank up.
I would sing "We'll have Fun, Fun, Fun til daddy takes the trash truck away!"
Buy decent metal cans and burn the trash. People on welfare should be required to pick up the trash or do something.
Bring in more illegals - they love tossing garbage on the ground. I recall an expensive school that catered to south american kids. They would go to the Subway and throw their trash out the car. Puerto Rico is like that too.
This might be a good idea for Detroit - I hear they could use $295.
http://vegasxau.blogspot.com
I hope all the liberals donate to this great cause..at least they are finally using their own money rather than someone elses.....its a start....but $2,000 a can....I have to change jobs...lots of money in garbage cans I think...
My guess of how this story ends: They raise less than $500....way too little for a premium trash can. Now what do they do with the money? how about $50 Christmas bonuses for the 10 member park board!
Seriously, this is what you get with goverment that always thinks it knows what's best for everyone else, but don't have enough economic sense to add 2 + 2. They really must believe everyone in private sector is a millionaire and money does grow on trees. At least those getting their pensions cut will get a small taste of reality. Here is a $100 solution: Get some signs made and start a "carry out your trash" initiative. Put plastic bags in a despensor (like doggy doo doo bags) the size of a plastic grocery bag. Then hold 2 clean up the park days to pick up any excess trash and clear trails from debris/tree limbs etc.
This is a low income, urban area. In my experience (I lived in a few REALLY bad areas when in college), the residents typically don't have any pride in their neighborhood (under 40 crowd). You need to have a critical mass of mature neighbors who care about their neighborhood.
http://www.city-data.com/city/Central-Falls-Rhode-Island.html
Which magnifies the nature of the problem. Who is going to fork over money to a bankrupt town for $10,000 trashcans just so those who will use it most won't care a hoot about keeping it up anyway.
I imagine the breakdown is something like this:
$250 for the trash cans
$3000 kickback to the trash can maker, $2000 of which will find its way back into city council members' pockets "somehow"
$500 to make sure they're installed according to code
$2000 to cover the cost of maintaining/emptying the cans for a year (republican-voting but democrat controlled public sanitation union [probably part of the municipal civil servant union) pulled a round number out of their ass)
$1000 for installation including anti-theft devices, painting, signage, etc.
$1000 for state/federally-mandated park sanitation and environmental impact studies
...
$1000 to cover the cost of calculating the all-in cost of the cans for a year
WHEN SOMEONE ELSE IS PAYING, NO PRICE IS TOO HIGH. Supply and demand do not exist here. Profit and loss do not exist. It ain't rocket science to figure out where this ends up: greed, graft, waste, inefficiency, inefficacy, bloat...
Edit: A better statist-approved solution: jack up the fine for littering to like $500, then pay cops overtime to patrol the park all day and night. You'll be raking in the cash in no time. Then when the park gets so filthy, use the local media to drum up support for a measure to raise taxes to pay for the park cleanup. If that fails, sell the park land to Walmart or some shit, who gives a fuck, right? Win/win
Hey, morons. Did any of you ever go to a god damned park?
It really does cost a lot. When did you ever see walmat trash cans lying around a park? They are on concrete pads, and chained to the pad. It's a fucking construction project.
I wouldn't expect dot gov to do that efficiently, but it's not $20 bucks for a plastic can.
Hmm, a 2-1/2 foot spike driven into the ground for the chain would cost what, exactly?
If someone's so po' that they gotta steal a trashcan, then their priorities (for thievery!) are messed up!
How about SHUT DOWN ALL THESE CORRUPT LITTLE LOCAL TOWN FIEFDOMS!! What do the people lose? Cops driving around harassing and robbing you? The town fining you for bullshit? Paying a building inspector to take bribes and have buildings that fall down anyway? Paying town Supervisors to appropriate and push through projects like building 10 million dollar parks in the middle of nowhere and hiring every family member they have to build it? A town filled with family members running everything all getting paid by tax dollars and inceaseing their own salaries? Hmmmm, GET RID OF ALL THIS BULLSHIT GOVERNMENT!!!
It gets better. I went to the official site: http://www.citizinvestor.com/project/clean-up-cf-new-bins-in-jenks-park and looked at the details. Must pledge by credit card and once the target is reached your card gets charged. But not just the pledged amount, you get a 3% transaction charge and a 5% charge for Citizenvest services....or in other words a 8% surcharge on top of your donation. Why not just let Ticketmaster handle the whole thing? Sounds like this city, which is the only Hispanic majority city in Rhode ISland (20k residents) is getting duped again. No worry, they have now raised $390 and STILL have 53 days to reach the goal or the whole thing is off.
You can't make this stuff up.
Just like the government. Are we SICK of these assholes yet? I wouldn't give them a jar of red piss. How about we turn the Town Supervisors house and property into a garbage dump? Problem solved. The government, it's like saving someone's life and they kick you in the balls for it. Fuck them. Stop paying taxes.
Kickstarter retains a fee of like 5% for overhead (I believe they use amazon cloud services/hosting) and transaction fees (credit card merchant processing fees and the like).
seriously WHO THE FUCK would actually DONATE money to a town? I wouldn't stop and piss on a politician if he was lying in a gutter on fire. WHO ARE THE IDIOTS THAT DONATED??? They need to be removed from the gene pool.
Right On! But, I think it goes..."I would'nt piss up his ass if his guts were on fire."
Thanks MBK for the research. Idiots. And yes, I think I will pony up my cc information to the soon-to-be unemployed clerks running the office of a bankrupt city ... sure thing.
Do what I did; I went to their website and donated -100 dollars and my CC was credited with just over 114 dollars!
I'm like a Jr. Bernanke over here!
Detroit could use a few dozen Robocops right now, as the city looks worse in real life than it did in the first film. It turns out the filmmakers were being optimistic.
Don't you worry about that. DARPA is working on those as we speak. They'll be ready just as soon as the populace is conditioned enough to accept them
The government is afraid that if we shut them down we'll all discover that WE WON'T EVEN MISS THEM!! ANDIN FACT LIFE WILL GET BETTER WITHOUT THEM!!! SHUT THEM DOWN!! STOP PAYING TAXES!!!
Move me up ahead of the institutional bondholders owed $12.4MM and pay me 5% and I'll buy the cans. They could do it like a prosper.com for municipalities.
We will discover that the government adds NOTHING to your life and in FACT all the money they gleen from us goes to their salaries so they can drive expensive cars and live in big houses and walk around like they're important. When IN FACT they're just lying thieving crooks. FUCK ALL THESE FUCKING TOWNS!!
Well its $300 for the garbage cans and $1,700 in union pay and benefits to put it on the truck, drive the truck, unload the truck and set it on the ground, then drive back to the garage. Cost does not include smoke breaks, lunch breaks, water breaks, bull shitting breaks, and looking for hot chicks breaks. All in a good days work.
The overwhelming response to this crowd source attempt should prove once and for all that you can fool some of the people some of the time, but darned few people will fork over 2-grand for a trash can.
What ever happend to American Ingenuity? Steel cans work well or build it out of masonry with a liner for the trash bag. 2K per can, no wonder we are so f*****
would not give the motherfuckers of any government $1, even if i had a fucking printing press.......bunch of lowlife leeches.....but i give them credit, they have NO SHAME !
"a life-size monument of RoboCop"
Now, that is an intelligent use of crowdfunding at a time when cities cannot even pay for basic necessities.
"On April 25, 2010, the Providence Journal Bulletin ran an article detailing rampant fraud and corruption by Mayor Charles D. Moreau, outlining no-bid contracts and kickbacks from a high school friend, who was granted almost $2,000,000 in overpriced property boarding fees. The article further states that the same friend gifted him a $6,875 furnace for his own home for only $6000, which Moreau said he paid 'in cash'. The friend in question, Michael G. Bouthillette, was a campaign contributor to Moreau's multiple re-election campaigns. These allegations and others are currently being investigated by the Rhode Island State Police."
Any guesses as to who the city will buy the garbage cans from?
ALL TIME RECORD gun and ammo sales = the ultimate crowdfunded hedge against this mess ending on the bad guys terms.
I fully expect this to catch on. When it does, I fully expect to see a story or two on ZH about how political cronies and union officials are found to be the ones lending the money into these public projects at interest rates WELL ABOVE market levels. I also fully expect them to have preferential repayment terms with respect to other debt holders. And lastly, I fully expect this will really take hold in the city of Chicago.
i don't know what is more amazing... the cost per unit, or the fact the 19,000 residents can't pony up $0.53 each to have it done....
WTF
I thought cities already had crowdfunding? It's called taxes?
Yeah, really.
Plus, why not save the tax payers some money and go to Home Despot-you can get a trashcan there for, like, 20$.
I'd buy one of these little fuckers:
The simplest way to brew high-quality all-grain beer!
Do you love great craft-brew? Ever wanted to make your own great beer at home? Or perhaps you have home-brewed before, but you're painfully aware of the time and effort involved: 6-8 hours of tedious brewing, then messy cleanup and potentially bad batches and batch-to batch variability...
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1708005089/picobrew-zymatic-the-auto...
That's! Brilliant!
I was in town the other day watching some POS slouching down the "skreet" eating out of some snack bag. I told my friend that I would bet him any amount that this SOB would throw the bag on the ground when he was done. My friend is too smart to take that bet. We just laughed when the fucker dropped it. What the fuck do you need trash cans for? They won't be used. Sorry ass bastards think the whole fucking world is a trash can.
Just ask college students or local artists to volunteer their services and guaranty if their design is approved, it will remain in place, and let creativity soar. I bet artists, home machine shop guys, and college kids would come up with some cool, innovative, unique stuff. Home workshop guys will build anything just for the sheer enjoyment of it if you motivate them. And artists? Community-minded folks are happy to contribute to the beautification of their own space when you let them. Charging thousands for a freaking garbage can is just silly.