WOOLWICH COUNCIL MEETING of May 10, 2011 7 pm.

Good Evening Mayor, Councillors, Staff, Media, and Audience:

Council: Approximately, six months and 16 days ago many of you, to your surprise, were elected to Woolwich Council. A couple of you with extensive political experience under your belts were much less surprised. In that intervening time frame both the novices and the old pros have jumped in , rolled up their sleeves and gotten down to the business of the Township. You all deserve credit and praise for taking on these essentially thankless and frankly underpaid tasks.
So, aside from my well known penchant for sucking up to authority, why am I here tonite? By my count including Committee of the Whole and Council Meetings you have publicly met once in December (Inaugural Council Meeting) and thirteen times in 2011 including tonite. That is proper, appropriate and commendable. Your Committee of Council however, namely the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee has met ZERO times publicly to date. The best we have achieved as of last evening is the setting of a date one month down the road (June 8), to ALLEGEDLY set a date for the first public CPAC meeting . The first proposed Agenda that I sent into the Township had a public meeting date of January 24, 2011. The second proposed Agenda date was for May 2, 2011. The third date was for May 17, 2011. All have been rejected by the Township. As of right now if a date gets mentioned, I’m no longer sure if it’s for 2011 or 2012.
So am I merely becoming a fussy old fart in my old age? Why the unreasonable rush by me to get a public CPAC meeting ? We have a tentative date of June 13 for Chemtura’s reverification as meeting the “Responsible Care” designation of the former Canadian Chemical Producers Association (CCPA). Tentative means exactly that. I’ve been assured by the Township that tentative means June 13 or later. Firstly the Township neither set the date nor reschedule the date. Secondly “tentative” does not mean necessarily later. This reverification is a huge deal for Chemtura and they indeed failed multiple times in the late 90’s and early 2000’s to achieve it. A significant part of those failures were the lack of a proper and open relationship with the community. In other words independent public consultation. Who among us has already forgotten last fall’s dispersal of BLE-25 into our community by Chemtura? Who among us besides the new CPAC members including myself are aware of the July 2003 “Request for Action” that was unanimously passed by CPAC, asking among other things for the removal of Dioxins, better known as Agent Orange from Chemtura’s property?
We have an immediate opportunity based on Chemtura’s reverification and based upon an upcoming provincial election in October. The Ontario government and the Ministry of the Environment will be much more willing to actually remove Agent Orange before the election rather than after. Now is construction season. Now is the time to appoint two new CPAC members to this imminent reverification team.
Woolwich Township you are on the verge of losing this opportunity. Your new CPAC are keen and eager. Please take off the hobbles and let us go. We have been stymied, stalled and delayed and quite frankly excuses, rationalizations and lectures on process, procedure and respect are both offensive and disrespectful.

Alan Marshall Elmira Environmental Hazards Team
Proud CPAC member

THIS ABOVE PRESENTATION WAS GIVEN VERBATIM EARLIER THIS EVENING AT A PUBLIC COUNCIL MEETING. THEIR RESPONSE WAS GIVEN ABOUT HALF AN HOUR LATER AND WILL BE TOLD IN THE MORNING HERE. Alan