WOOLWICH COUNCIL JUST A TAD BIT HYPOCRITICAL?

Today's Woolwich Observer has a small article titled "No Woolwich funding for biogas group". Another title for my posting here could be "No good deed goes unpunished". This group of citizens represent the interests of all Elmira citizens via their spending their time and money by sitting on the Citizens Liason Committee (CLC) dealing with operations at Woolwich Bio-En. Thay had originally participated in public meetings and protests with the support by the way originally of Mayor Cowan and Woolwich Council. This turned south rather abruptly although major efforts were made unsucessfully to relocate the operation outside of Elmira.

They also spent their money, not the Township's in appealing to the Environmental Review Tribunal which among other things mandated setting up the CLC and a system of matching dollars for peer reviews. What I found most hypocritical in this article was the fact that councillors in refusing to turn public money over to this group who are representing the public; dared to suggest that as a committee of council they would more likely receive money. In fact they used the example of the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) being a committee of council and hence eligible for peer review money. Fat chance of that as the Township has always tried to get Chemtura to pay for any CPAC expenses. CPAC are constantly asking for money for peer reviews of technical documents produced by Chemtura's consultants CRA. To state that CRA's reports are client driven is a major understatement and even newer CPAC members understand that. Just recently Council have offerred to pay travel expenses for CPAC members to attend meetings. This is nothing more than a reminder as to which body are in charge and as the article states CPAC are under the control of the Township. It absolutely isn't a case of the blind leading the blind. It's a case of the woefully ignorant and biased constantly imposing on a group of dedicated and constantly learning volunteers. To have Councillor Bauman reporting back to Council on CPAC matters is unfortunate. His ideas and motives quite clearly are in conflict with the rest of CPAC with only one possible exception.