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February 5, 2008 Update
Sammons Point is once again an incorporated village!
Voters within the Sammons Point proposed boundaries voted 87 to 65 to reincorporate their village thereby taking control of the area from Kankakee County government. This means the County does not have the jurisdiction in that area to site a garbage dump as they have tried to do in the recent past.
December 5, 2007
Sammons Point incorporation question back on the February ballot!
The Sammons Point question to incorporate will be back on the
February ballot. The judge ruled in favor of the citizens who are seeking to
reincorporate Sammons Point. This became necessary after Waste Management won
an appeal to Appellate Court earlier this year which threw out the original
incorporation of Sammons Point.
If a majority of the voters within the proposed boundaries of Sammons Point vote
in favor of incorporation, the area where Waste Management wants to create a 302
acre Chicago regional garbage dump will no-longer be under the jurisdiction of
County government. It will be under the control of the citizens of Sammons
Point. Congrats to the people of Sammons Point. This is also a victory for the
area's water supply i.e. the river and aquifer.
December 5, 2007
The referendum for re-incorporation of Sammons Point is on the ballot for the February 2008 election. Let the campaign innuendos, slurs and false charges begin. by Keith Runyon, president of CUT
The issue is whether the potential residents of Sammons Point will vote to
stop a 302 acre 230 foot high proposed landfill expansion or if the opponents
will be successful in defeating the incorporation and keeping the door open for
the County to force the toxic tomb on the residents of Otto TWP. Any other
argument is simply background noise
Opponents of Sammons Point have the right to oppose the incorporation and to
campaign against its incorporation. Unfortunately, most of the past opposition
campaign tactics have been predicated on misinformation and deceit and fail to
address the key issue. Those who support incorporation seem to have a clear
objective. Their objective is to stop Waste Management and the County from
dumping a 302 acre 230 foot high garbage dump expansion in their front and back
yards.
Let’s review the fatuous opposition arguments:
First, they argue the Village is not needed because the Waste Management has
abandoned its attempts to site an expansion to the now closed landfill. Wrong!
A) Waste Management still has options on the land for the proposed expansion.
B) Waste Management has appealed to the Illinois Pollution Control Board in an
attempt to overturn the County’s denial of their January 2003 siting
application. That hearing will be heard at the PCB headquarters in Chicago on
January 24, 2008.
C) Waste Management persuaded the Appellate Court to overturn the first Sammons
Point incorporation. They know their only avenue to expansion is through the
County. The incorporation of Sammons Point wrests siting jurisdiction away from
the county and bestows in the hands of the Sammons Point landfill opponents.
D) Waste Management has expended thousands of dollars in attempting to keep the
new application for incorporation off the ballot. Waste Management is very much
alive & well and in play in Otto Twp.
Second, the opponents argue that Mike Watson wants Sammons Point incorporated
so he can have his own landfill. They base this on the false charge that Watson
proposed a Watson owned landfill to the County in March of 2002. This argument
is substantively incorrect and devoid of logic.
A) In this case logic is conspicuously absent. Why would the citizens of Sammons
Point incorporate to stop a Waste Management landfill from being sited, only to
then capitulate to Watson or any other party desiring a landfill?
B) Watson proposed a County owned landfill accepting only 1000 tons of in-county
garbage per day, while yielding more revenue to the County than they would have
received from a 3500 ton per day, regional landfill, taking in mostly out of
county garbage. There was never a proposal for a Watson owned landfill.
C) These facts were presented to the opponents during the first incorporation
campaign. Opponents were challenged to submit an FOI request to the County for a
copy of Watson’s proposal. The opponents either did not request the documents,
or they read them and discovered Watson did not apply for a Watson owned or
controlled landfill. That discovery would be an inconvenient truth and deflate
their false allegation.
The issue is clear cut. The supporters of Sammons Point are seeking to protect
themselves from the devastating ravages of a giant toxic dump. The opponents
appear to be proponents either willingly or unwitting agents for the Waste
Management expansion. A vote against incorporation is a vote for the landfill
expansion.
We applaud the supporters of incorporation for exercising every effort to
protect themselves and their property from the devastation of a landfill. We
also thank them for the ancillary benefit accruing to the entire county by
preventing this water contaminating toxic dump from being built.