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May 26, 2006
City of Kankakee Mayor Don Green continues his political prattle with yet another repeat of his often repeated story of how this self anointed garbage Galahad has single handedly architected a plan to rescue all of the county from the ravages of increased garbage collection fees with his proposed new toxic, water contaminating, Town and Country garbage dump. While at the same time handing his city residents the highest garbage collection rates in the County by awarding the contract to a campaign donor without going to competitive bid as other communities do.
The Mayor is a chief proponent of the contemporary political practice of telling a political lie repeatedly until some people begin to believe the lie. If the Mayor continues to perpetuate his garbage fabrication long enough, he may even begin to believe it. Since the Mayor seldom consorts with the truth, we have decided to bathe the public and the Mayor on the real story of the local Garbage (money) Wars.
Unlike his self portrayal as a garbage visionary who had the foresight to plan an alternative to the now closing Waste Management dump site, the Mayor and the City were late comers to this viscous garbage war.
The real story is as follows, Town and Country first approached the County of Kankakee with a proposal to expand the Waste Management dump under the Town and Country banner. Rebuffed by Kankakee County Board Chairman Karl Kruse, Town and County sought out a gullible alternative and “Greener” pastures. Enter Don Green and his lemming City Council. Lured by the promise of big sums of money from taking in out of County Garbage. They city illegally annexed the property now belonging to Edward Heil, on which the Town and Country disaster is to be built. Because the statute of limitations had run out to fight the illegal strip annexation, the toxic dump plan is now in place, although still tied up in the Courts.
Further, Don Green twice dispatched his minion of attorneys to local hearings on the Waste Management site expansion to object to that proposed expansion. He then coyly tells us, “The city has constantly objected to expansion of the Waste Management site. And then he concludes, that “as early as 2001 that the city anticipated the area would need a new landfill to replace the Waste Management’s Otto Township site” Well, duh!, if you are fighting the expansion of the Waste Management site, it isn’t too difficult to “anticipate” the need for alternative landfill space. How quick is this Mayor?
Now let’s level with ourselves, the Mayor couldn’t give a rodent’s posterior about County Garbage collections rates. He is only concerned about the money from imported garbage. In fact, the bet is three to one that the Mayor would accept all out of County garbage, to the total exclusion of in county garbage if that were a condition imposed by Town and Country Utilities.
The sincerity of the Mayors concern that citizens of the County have lower garbage collection fess by having a local dump can be tested another way. Let’s suppose Town and Country said “Mayor we will allow the County to dump all its toxic garbage in our dump for nothing, provided we do not have to pay the city any tipping fees for any garbage dumped from either in or out of county. Do you think Don would willingly take care of his fellow county citizens? Ha!
If the Mayor were really concerned about securing landfill space for local residents, he would have worked with the County to find the safest landfill space in the Southwest part of the Kankakee County per the Illinois Geological Survey recommendations. That wouldn’t work. Reddick hasn’t been annexed into the City of Kankakee.
The mayor is very critical of Kankakee County spending to fight the Town and Country dump. Hooray for the Kankakee County on this one! They have the last best chance of saving the population of this county from a contaminated river and primary aquifer i.e. the water supply of the area and resulting economic destruction.
If the City dump becomes reality, the lasting legacy of Mayor Green and his lemming Council will be the weekly deliveries of bottled water to almost every home in the county. That is, unless the Mayor comes up with a new strategy like, “Green” Water, The Environmentally Pure Bottled Water to rescue the water deprived citizens of Kankakee County.