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Alittle respect, please Council rejects dump proposal At one point during the Public Works Committee meeting, committee chair Sandra Jack invoked the name of God to emphasize the justice of her opinion. An application by private entrepreneurs to expand the Somerville dump was rejected by the committee. It was rejected a week later at the full City Council meeting. General Custer at the Little Bighorn stood a better chance of success than this proposal. 75% of the garbage would have been from outside Kawartha Lakes, and would have necessitated 40 to 50 whacking great trucks carrying 400 thousand tonnes per year through Fenelon Falls (although not during tourist season) for twenty years. The idea was preposterous from a political standpoint. The owners' consultant made a compelling case that the proposed dump would have been engineered with several clay liners and several plastic liners and filters, and leachate collection and treatment systems, so as to be environmentally friendly. But let's face it, importing garbage from other communities, with very little to show for it in terms of revenues for the City and probably a lot of road maintenance expense to local taxpayers, isn't a sexy, let's-go-for-it, idea. Which brings us back to councillor Jack. She ought to have been more gracious in victory. The vote against the project was "unanimous" as she gleefully, if irrelevantly, pointed out to the applicant. Her voice dripping with sarcasm, she figuratively gave the bum's rush to the businessman and his consultant. Let's remember that these people were not Nazi war criminals, they were private citizens pursuing a lawful, if unpopular, objective. They were entitled to courtesy and the simple respect owed to a private citizen and taxpayer. They didn't get it from councillor Jack‡. Reprinted from The Red Rock Eye Opener |