Minutes - 20080129 - Laserfiche WebLink

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PUBLIC COMMENT: Neloa Jones said that she really appreciates the effort that the Board is putting forth. She read from her prepared statement, as follows: "My name is Neloa Barbee Jones, and I am speaking on behalf of the Rogers- Eubanks Community and as Co-Chair of the Coalition to End Environmental Racism. My comments relate specifically to the site search criteria established thus far. In mid-November, when we presented before this board, we pointed to TWO points of special importance: 1) Establishing an advisory panel (or site search committee) As recommended by BOTH the National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (NEJAC) and the EPA in their Waste Transfer Stations: A Manual for Decision-Making, establishing this panel is absolutely essential to ensuring meaningful participation from the residents of Orange County and residents of the Rogers-Eubanks Community. Furthermore, this panel should be comprised of local and state elected officials. It should be comprised of representatives from environmental justice organizations; from civic, neighborhood, and community groups; from businesses and solid waste industries; and from academic institutions AS WELL AS technical consultants such as Olver. According to BOTH NEJAC and the EPA, this diverse panel is FIRST educated on site search issues and it is THIS panel that develops the initial set of site search criteria. Already evidenced by the materials thus far developed, having Olver alone, a technical consultant who lacks expertise to serve in diverse capacities, the present site search criteria thus presented is clearly and already flawed. 2) The second point of major importance includes the meaningful participation of the public and the application of community-specific criteria. For some inexplicable reason, the process outlined in your flow chart does not include public input OR apply community-specific criteria until very late in the site search process. Public input should begin immediately after the advisory panel develops the initial set of criteria. Community-specific should be applied much earlier in the process. The flowchart shows that community criteria are not applied until four (4) sites have been finalized. Developing site search criteria for a transfer station site in this manner violates EPA recommendations. For these reasons, we view this current process as already and clearly flawed. The site search steps listed in Figure 1, Exhibit 1 (attached) merely represent a COMPRESSED version of the process and were intended merely as an outline. We assumed that this board along with an advisory panel would do the work that each step demanded. We are disappointed that this has not been done because what this means is that the process once again will at best yield flawed results. So at this point, we implore this board to establish an advisory panel to begin developing appropriate criteria as soon as possible." The Board adjourned the meeting at 7:16 p.m. Barry Jacobs, Chair Donna S. Baker, CMC