Welcome To Poughkeepsie

City of Poughkeepsie, Population rough­ly 20,000. Chief Executive, ®Mayor John Tkazyik.

The City of Poughkeepsie is invit­ing all prop­er­ty own­ers who own a prop­er­ty clas­si­fied as “411” to explore the option of hav­ing the Sanitation Department col­lect refuse. We would like for you to com­pare your cur­rent san­i­ta­tion rates with the City of Poughkeepsie’s rates. The cost of refuse pick­up will be based on an assess­ment of the prop­er­ty done by the Department of Public Works. If you would like to set up an appoint­ment please con­tact DPW at (845) 451‑4111. http://​www​.city​of​pough​keep​sie​.com/

What the city’s Mayor and Website does not tell you is that these very prop­er­ty own­ers who own slight­ly larg­er Rental prop­er­ties enjoyed Garbage pick­up as a func­tion of the tax­es they pay like oth­er City Residents. These Property own­ers were forced to pay to have garbage from their prop­er­ties picked up by a Local Garbage com­pa­ny Royal Carting.

That arrange­ment lit­er­al­ly pun­ish­es those with a rental prop­er­ty with four or more Rental apart­ments. It’s a kind of dis­crim­i­na­to­ry pun­ish­ment of res­i­dents who have attained a degree of suc­cess. This is noth­ing new how­ev­er under this Mayor, there is a cer­tain type of selec­tive dis­pen­sa­tion of scarce resources in this not so large city. Main street, the main artery of the com­mer­cial dis­trict is clean and well main­tained . In the sec­tion from Academy down to the River. This sec­tion large­ly has white owned businesses . 

The sec­tion from Academy head­ing East to the City lim­its , sel­dom sees a street-clean­ing vehi­cle. In many instances there are shrubs grow­ing out of the side­walks. For full dis­clo­sure I have owned and oper­at­ed a Business on the lat­ter part of Main Street for 13 years. I have spo­ken to the Mayor about the way the Sanitation Department has gone about it’s func­tions and he has respond­ed swift­ly. However things go right back to the way they were the next day. This sec­tion is large­ly pop­u­lat­ed with Black and Mexican businesses.

Work crews have been busy installing new gas lines on the south­ern side of main street for months now . Residents have been forced to deal with traf­fic snarls. Business own­ers have com­plained of dras­tic reduc­tion in busi­ness as a result. Additionally, dust and noise pol­lu­tion from the heavy equip­ment adds to the mis­ery lev­el. Yet right on cue the City is busy hav­ing new park­ing meters installed for the first time on the east­ern cor­ri­dor of Main street.

Most cities do have park­ing meters. The prob­lem here in Poughkeepsie is that while the Mayor and his Administration gives the aver­age res­i­dent of the City less for his tax Dollar, large com­pa­nies seem to be doing real­ly well under his stew­ard­ship. If the Mayor wants to be a Mayor for all res­i­dents of the City, he must ensure ade­quate and equi­table dis­pen­sa­tion of ser­vices for tax-pay­ers funds. He can­not rea­son­ably ask for more, even as he gives less and less.

But then again the Mayor is already seek­ing high­er office. Business own­ers like myself will be forced to feed these Meters for the 11 or 12 hours we are open each day. Hopefully the Mayor will see fit to make sure that the streets are swept and the putrid sew­er odor in some areas are dealt with.