Residents Upset At Approval For New Rubatino Waste Center

EVERETT - The Riverside district lost another round yesterday in its struggle to stop Rubatino Refuse Removal Inc. from expanding into one of the city's oldest neighborhoods.

Despite pleas from residents restoring historic homes in the neighborhood, Everett Hearing Examiner James Driscoll yesterday granted Rubatino a special-use permit to build a recycling-transfer station near the foot of Everett Avenue.

However, Driscoll imposed 31 operating, design and construction conditions on Rubatino, including a requirement that truck drivers undergo safety training to protect children of the nearby Housing Hope project. The site would be shielded with a wooden fence at least 6 feet tall, and a 10-foot-wide landscaping strip is to be installed along Everett Avenue.

The Greater Riverside Organization hired an attorney to represent the neighborhood at a Feb. 11 public hearing before Driscoll. Now the organization must decide whether to raise more money to appeal the ruling to Snohomish County Superior Court, said President Frank Crosby.

"To do something like this to one of the old neighborhoods of the town, the beginning of the town, I don't know what word to describe it," Crosby said.

"I feel sorry for the town, because if this stuff is going to continue, then the town isn't going to grow decently. . . . "

Ed Rubatino, whose grandfather founded the business in Riverside in 1908, last night said he hadn't seen Driscoll's ruling.

"My concern is people's fear gets as much credibility as facts," he said. "That's what bothers me as much as anything in the system. . . . "

Rubatino has been illegally using the site to store garbage containers and recycling bins; that use now will be permitted if Rubatino builds the required fences and complies with other conditions. Rubatino also plans to use the site for yard-waste storage.

If Rubatino decides Driscoll's conditions for the recycling center are too restrictive or costly, then it won't be built, he said.

Rubatino now contracts with Diversified Industrial Services, which hires physically and developmentally disabled workers to sort recyclable waste at a facility at 36th and Maple streets, Rubatino said. Diversified also markets the end product, he said.

If the new, 100-foot-square transfer center is built in Riverside, Rubatino is likely to continue to contract with Diversified for the marketing end of the operation, he said.

"We feel there is a very definite benefit to us and to society in general for us to work with a sheltered workshop to help provide employment," Rubatino said.

Crosby said he blames the city Planning Department, not Driscoll, for yesterday's ruling.

"This should never have gotten to him," he said. "I think some of these old zonings should have been . . . looked at for what they really are. I think some of them were originally very political."

Commercial zones historically were intended for retail outlets, not industrial operations, Crosby said.

"In the case of Rubatino, he's a complete industry. He's picking up the material, recycling, reloading, bang. That's an industry," he said.

"Sixty, 70 years ago, yeah, these things did happen. But I think we're more sophisticated today than we were then. When I see a ruling like this I wonder, have we progressed or are we still a simple country crossroads?"