Mark-Paul Serafin says he has been collecting cans and bottles for the deposits. He estimates he made $25 to $50 a month and says he used the money to care for a sick dog.
Mark-Paul Serafin, the mayor of the village of Manlius, was ticketed by town police for violating the village's recycling law. Manlius Village Mayor Mark-Paul Serafin has been charged by town of Manlius police with taking bottles and cans put out by village residents, a violation of the village’s recycling regulations.
Serafin, 52, was issued a criminal summons on Tuesday at Manlius Village Centre and is scheduled to appear in village court at 7 p.m. Oct. 7. The charge is a violation, similar to a speeding ticket.
The mayor was charged following a complaint by a village resident on Aug. 24.
Serafin said Wednesday he believes the complaint was a politically motivated attack on him. Police would not identify who made the complaint, he said.
Serafin said he’s collected bottles and cans in neighborhoods around the village for about 10 years. He used the $25 to $50 he’d collect each month for medicine for his sick Labrador, Bacchus.
Serafin said some people would leave recyclables out for him, or tell them he could pick them.
“Ninety percent of the time, people knew I was picking them up,” Serafin said. “People along my route on Tuesdays and Wednesdays would share ideas and concerns about the village for me, and it became an interaction with them for me.”
The mayor said he didn’t realize he was violating village code until a trustee told him this summer, when he’d already begun phasing out his collections after his dog died in late July.
Serafin said he never hid from people.. “I thought I was picking up things that were unwanted, and it was something I did in the light of the day. I didn’t wear a disguise,” he said.
Manlius Village’s code addresses recycling regulations, and stipulates that all recyclable containers are county or village property. The code also states that from the time recyclables are placed at or near the curb for purposes of collection by the village those materials become village property and no else can collect or pick them up.
Serafin has been mayor since April 2009.