Todays OpEd by the Scranton Times Tribune Editorial Board exposes the pretzel logic used by two of the Dunmore Council members who rolled over for the landfill despite running on campaign promises to oppose it leading to a write-in campaign by Dunmore resident, Janet Brier. As stated in the OpEd, Brier’s campaign gives borough residents the opportunity to hold borough officials accountable, to condemn their government’s rolling over for a powerful special interest, and to give voice to their opposition to the expansion.
Write-in effort exposes pretzel logic
BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD / PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 4, 2019
Some Dunmore politicians still want borough residents to believe that they oppose the Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s massive expansion, even after they recently rolled over for the project in a crucial zoning case.
The expansion would keep the landfill open for more than four more decades, during which more than 100 million tons of mostly out-of-state trash would be added to the millions of tons already there.
At issue in the zoning case was whether the landfill could be regulated as a structure, which is important because of height restrictions in the borough zoning code pertaining to structures. State appellate courts already have established that landfills are structures, so the landfill asked the borough to alter its zoning ordinance to specifically hold that landfills are not structures, and council complied.
Two councilmen who are up for re-election, Michael McHale and Michael Hayes, voted for the change after campaigning against the landfill expansion.
Now borough resident Janet Brier has launched a write-in campaign against the pair in an effort to prove that they can’t have it both ways. McHale won a Democratic nomination in the heavily Democratic borough; Hayes won a Republican nomination by write-in.
Hayes, remarkably, recently claimed that his zoning vote doesn’t conflict with his political position against landfill expansion. There is no doubt, however, that his vote facilitates the landfill’s expansion.
Hayes also claimed that he protected taxpayers with his zoning vote by warding off potential litigation from the landfill company. Sometimes, however, litigation is necessary to protect the public interest. And the long-term negative impacts of the expansion on the borough and the region are likely to be far more expensive, in many different ways, than the cost of a lawsuit.
The councilman also claimed he was protecting millions of dollars that the borough receives from the landfill in host community fees, but that contradicts his supposed opposition to the expansion.
Hayes, at least, has stated his case. McHale has remained silent about it since the vote.
Brier’s campaign gives borough residents the opportunity to hold borough officials accountable, to condemn their government’s rolling over for a powerful special interest, and to give voice to their opposition to the expansion.