CHRIS KELLY: A flimsy argument

cole structure.jpg

A great column by Christopher J. Kelly in the The Scranton Times-Tribune today. Link and full article below.

"The real question for council is not whether the landfill is a structure, but whether the political power structure will continue to serve the profits of one wealthy man, or finally protect the interests of a public that doesn’t deserve to be dumped on for generations to come."

The current Dunmore Council consists of:
-- Michael Dempsey
-- Carol Scrimalli
-- Michael McHale
-- Michael Hayes
-- Thomas Ehnot
-- Vincent Amico
-- Thomas Hallinan

They will decide this matter. We trust they will do what is right for the future of the Borough and as Kelly states in his column, "Dunmore Borough Council meets Thursday to either affirm or debase the legal meaning of the word in a decision that may define and defile the borough and Northeast Pennsylvania for generations."

CHRIS KELLY: A flimsy argument
KELLY'S WORLD / PUBLISHED: SEPTEMBER 15, 2019

Structure: (noun) Something built or constructed, as a building, bridge, or dam. Power structure: (noun) An elite group constituted by people holding influential positions within a government, society, or organization.

— Both definitions from
Dictionary.com

The word of the week is “structure.”

Dunmore Borough Council meets Thursday to either affirm or debase the legal meaning of the word in a decision that may define and defile the borough and Northeast Pennsylvania for generations.

The immediate question before council is as absurd as it is academic: Is a landfill — designed by architects, supported by an elaborate, meticulously engineered framework and built in layers from the ground up — a structure?

The answer is key to the proposed 46-year expansion of Keystone Sanitary Landfill. The current zoning ordinance prohibits structures higher than 50 feet. Keystone owner Louis DeNaples wants to pile a mountain of mostly imported trash more than three times higher.

If his landfill is a structure, DeNaples can’t build it. A 2014 Commonwealth Court ruling on a Mercer County case says landfills are structures and subject to zoning as such.

That precedent clearly favors the legal challenge of expansion opponents, so DeNaples and his attorneys have leaned on borough officials to remove this obstacle by erasing a distinction Keystone officials have long cited in defense of the dump.

The dump is not a dump, they object. It’s a state-of-the-art facility that relies on complex technology and employs hundreds of local taxpayers. Calling Keystone a dump is like calling a Ferrari an oxcart. Keystone is the Trump Tower of landfills, but don’t dare call it a structure.

This preposterous double standard has served Keystone’s interests at the expense of its neighbors for decades. In February 1999, this newspaper reported that the sprawling landfill paid less in property taxes than the Toys R Us store in Dickson City.

Taxed as undeveloped land, Keystone’s property became vastly more valuable after the state Department of Transportation took 122 acres for construction of the Casey Highway.

The state offered the owners $1 million for the parcel. A Lackawanna County Board of View — a court-appointed board that handles condemnation disputes — ruled that PennDOT owed Keystone a staggering $237 million for the land. In November 2001, the state agreed to a settlement that paid the DeNaples family $41 million in taxpayer cash.

In October 2015, the Dunmore Zoning Board agreed with Keystone’s absurd argument that landfills are not structures. A handful of landfill neighbors and the grassroots group Friends of Lackawanna appealed. In April 2017, after all 12 Lackawanna County judges recused themselves, the state went to its bench for a judge to hear the appeal.

Out of 124 potential judges, the nod just happened to go to Northampton County Senior Judge Leonard N. Zito. As I reported at the time, Zito failed to disclose his past career as a ruthless advocate for the embattled expansion of Grand Central Landfill in Northampton County.

As an attorney for the landfill’s owners, Zito filed lawsuits against municipalities and everyday citizens, including a libel complaint against a woman who wrote a letter to the editor of her local newspaper opposing the expansion.

In April, Zito ruled the neighbors and Friends of Lackawanna lacked legal standing to challenge the expansion and had “failed to demonstrate a direct, immediate and substantial harm” that might result from dumping 100 million more tons of trash at the heart of the valley.

Surprise! Since then, the state Department of Environmental Protection issued an “environmental” assessment of the expansion that downplayed its environmental harms while trumpeting its economic benefits. By a 3-2 vote last week, the Dunmore Planning Commission recommended amending the zoning code in Keystone’s favor.

Council, which has the final word on any amendment, will hold a public hearing Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Dunmore Community Center, 1414 Monroe Ave. If you know a structure when you see one, there will never be a better time to stand up and say so.

The real question for council is not whether the landfill is a structure, but whether the political power structure will continue to serve the profits of one wealthy man, or finally protect the interests of a public that doesn’t deserve to be dumped on for generations to come.

CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, structured this column. Contact the writer: kellysworld@timesshamrock.com, @cjkink on Twitter. Read his award-winning blog at times-tribuneblogs.com/kelly.