Thursday, June 14, 2012

Twitter account of tonight's Cleveland Park community meeting on building a garbage transfer station

I'm sure that Jamie Hollin is going to follow up with a thorough, reflective and engaging report of the proceedings of tonight's community meeting on a proposed solid waste transfer facility for Cleveland Park at his blog, but here is a quick-and-dirty summary based on his blow-by-blow Twitter stream with a couple of observations tweeted by Matt Pulle, who was also at the meeting:


  • It was the largest turnout for a Cleveland Park Neighborhood Association meeting in memory.
  • A meeting that should have been 30 minutes dragged on for 2 hours.
  • The meeting dragged on for 2 hours because the community was preached at by meeting leaders.
  • Among other things, meeting leaders preached to neighborhood leaders on how to be engaged in the community.
  • Meeting attendees were admonished to keep their questions to 1 minute.
  • 30 minutes into the meeting, the audience was still not told what the purpose of the meeting was.
  • People were ready to vote on the neighborhood garbage station an hour into the meeting.
  • Garbage station owners said they are "small operation" even though they operate in 30 states.
  • Planned building will be 100,000 square feet which equates to tons of garbage trucked through Cleveland Park.
  • Scare tactics were used (that is, threats of what could go in place of a garbage station).
  • Pro-garbage-station speaker promised there would not be garbage odor problems in Cleveland Park.
  • Pro-garbage-station speaker compared storing tons of garbage in Cleveland Park to a household storing a rubbish bin under the sink.
  • No one in the audience showed public support for the project when vote was taken.
  • According to Matt: 99% attending were against a trash station in Cleveland Park.
  • CM Scott Davis says he will file the bill in support of a neighborhood garbage transfer station tomorrow (Friday), which puts in on track for a June 19 council meeting.
  • CM Davis seemed elusive, but may be part of the 1% supporting a trash station in Cleveland Park.

I would say never underestimate the power of a council member to leverage "councilmanic courtesy" to pass legislation over the protests of a majority of constituents. Metro Council is tight like that. This sounds like a potential mess for Cleveland Park.

2 comments:

  1. What Jaimie said, plus:

    1. Nobody raised their hand or spoke out in favor of the project with the exception of one rambling neighborhood "leader" who somehow seemed to think that the facility did not need council approval to operate. (And therefore he wanted to extract the best deal, he told us.)

    2. The garbage station manager candidly admitted that he hopes to expand the facility behind its proposed use, which would mean, as he also admitted, that they would be running more of their trucks through out neighborhood.

    3. The place is in a 100-year floodplain, although according to people who live right near the property say it floods at least once a year. The garbage station manager maintained that he has no evidence that the place doesn't flood because he didn't see any mold inside the abandoned building.

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  2. Scott Davis will set himself up for the next recall vote if he supports garbage instead of his constituents. Check his campaign finance disclosure. Let's follow the money.

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