From Brian Lockhart, CT Post:
Organizers of new nonprofit Park City Compost, which has been operating for several months at Captain’s Cove in the Black Rock section of town, thought they had the perfect spot in the East Side to relocate and expand their food scraps recycling project.
“We started looking all around the city to find something that’s not immediately abutting neighbors (and) useable,” Councilman Scott Burns of Black Rock, chairman of Park City Composts’ board, said of the yearlong search for land. “The problem is there really are very few potential sites in the entire city. We’re looking for about an acre.”
And, Burns said, after discovering previously eyed property at the West Side sewer treatment plant was too contaminated, municipal land at 774 East Main St. checked the necessary boxes. So a five-year, free-of-charge lease — technically an access agreement — was drawn up and approved by the council’s contracts committee at its Oct. 8 meeting.
Then it headed to the full, all-Democrat council early this past week — and was soundly rejected, with 17 members voting against the arrangement, two absent and Burns abstaining to avoid a conflict-of-interest.
“The community came out and were against it,” said Councilwoman Jeanette Herron, a contracts committee co-chair. “There’s really not much of a conversation (about the “no” vote) other than that. They came out.”
Full story here
Clearly, this isn’t a laughing matter. What is hilarious is the myopic Council vote on a sustainable environmental concept! Understanding the community having been burned at the stake by Mount Trashmore. However, the principals involved are highly principled.
The City “owns” assets. Land is such an asset. There is land that is empty of structures, produces no income, and has value to a potential “user”. Have other parties eyes on the 774 East Main Street property for their own reasons? What is the expense to the City currently? The loss of taxes on the property? Perhaps there is more discussion necessary for a variety of reasons.
But the concept of “environmental activity that offers to serve the entire community” and save public funds by maintaining a mainly volunteer structure to be opposed by 600 City petitioners is notable. Perhaps it indicates to me, and perhaps to others, that something “smells” and it is not likely that we are talking about the food scraps system that has been operating in part of the City for two years already.
It is a scalable enterprise that needs to educate the public. Perhaps it needs our former Green Guide, Mayor Bill Finch, to share his opinion and the facts and odors, as he understands them. Time will tell.