Photo by Joanne Beck
Amanda Lee received a bit of spotlight Monday as she sat in the hot seat for the first time as the newly hired GLOW regional solid waste management-recycling administrator.
Lee replaced Peggy Grayson, who retired from the full-time position June 30 after nearly two dozen years. As a search was conducted, Grayson had agreed to remain on in a part-time capacity to show her successor the ropes, training which the newcomer said she was grateful for.
“I’m really glad I had that month,” Lee said during the county’s Public Service meeting.
The job deals with all things recycling and solid waste management, from used paint cans and electronics to cooking oil, vaping cartridges, and K-cups, related collections events, and composting.
Lee had already gotten her feet wet with a couple of recycling collections, she said. She had also begun to ease some social media into the job so that people could communicate with her online, she said.
So what prompted Lee, who is from Hamburg, to pursue this profession in Genesee County? Timing is everything.
She has a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies and animal behavior, ecology and conservation, and specializes in conservation issues.
“Waste management is a really big part of that. So I just had graduated during COVID, in the pandemic, and so the opportunities to get into the environmental world were very slim as it is,” she said after the meeting. “So I saw this opportunity and I jumped on it as soon as I could, as a way to really grow my career and start my career really.
“I want to have a positive environmental impact on the world. And I think starting in local government is a really, really good place,” she said. “And offering people that don’t always have access to disposal of things that opportunity to get rid of them in an environmentally friendly way.”
Lee's first official duty was to introduce an intermunicipal contract renewal to the committee, which it approved and passed along to Ways & Means.
The Genesee, Livingston and Wyoming Counties (GLOW) Region Solid Waste Management Program Intermunicipal Cooperation contract is scheduled to expire on Dec. 31, 2023, and the GLOW Region Solid Waste Management Committee recommends the continuation of the contract.
The budget impact of $26,151.52 is the projected annual Genesee County contribution for 2024 and 2025. The contribution is an increase of 4.4 percent from the previous year as adjusted per the latest Census numbers.
It is expected that Ways & Means will approve the contract, and it will then move on to the whole county Legislature for vote.
