THEY AREN'T ALL CORRUPT IN WOOLWICH

Yes the fix was clearly in last evening in Woolwich Council chambers. Yes the environment as well as health and safety took two hits. There were also however two positive signs that everything isn't 100% pre-orchestrated. Firstly three Council members were upset with their senior staffer Dan Kennally. He presented the so called Elmira Boundary Rationalization along with the St. Jacobs redesignation of the municipal boundaries. Larry Shantz, Murray Martin and Mark Bauman took serious exception to the non-inclusion of the Gillies parcel. They indicated that they had made it clear back in December that they expected it to be put within the new boundaries rather than left out. Mr. Kennally explained that including it would require east side employment lands in Elmira to be reduced by the same amount. Patrick Merlihan argued that for short term gain of potential only seniors housing in St. Jacobs, that council were jeopardizing their long hoped for Elmira By-Pass as well as their east side employment lands. The vote was five to one in favour of including the Gillies .91 hectare parcel in St. Jacobs.

The second sign was Councillor Merlihan's statements at the start of his argument. He made it clear that the Gillies parcel was a done deal by the rest of council in opposition to Dan Kennally's apparently logical and consistent planning decision. Clearly the split on Council is not diminishing.

As far as the fix being in I see that based upon council's idiocy with the Bolender Park Landfill. While I see the so called Boundary Rationalization as an indication of character and integrity by Mr. Kennally; his position on the Landfill is not. He appears to be following council's playbook, lock, stock and barrel. Unfortunately this includes Councillor Merlihan. Obviously this council are terrified about opening a Pandora's box if they do the right thing with the methane problem. They are doing their absolute best not to read the technical reports and not to listen to the few of us who have.

The second environmental hit is in regards to the East Side being used for either Employment lands or for the future By-Pass. The taxpayers will pay a small fortune more for development on the east side rather than on the west side. This is due to the regular flooding Canagagigue Creek and the large floodplain accompanying it. Roads and bridges will have to be far more elevated and impervious to flooding than they would be on the west side of town.

Furthermore there is the strong odour of collusion with Chemtura now known as Lanxess. The odour is not based upon public lobbying by the company as much as it is by the public lobbying for this east side expansion by the owner of the likely highly contaminated farm on the east side of Chemtura/Lanxess. Both these two contaminated farms as well as the Canagagigue Creek are the repository's of the legacy of gross chemical pollution by Uniroyal Chemical, the predecessor to both Chemtura and Lanxess. DDT, Agent Orange, Dioxins, poly aromatic hydrocarbons and so much more are in both the creek sediments and the floodplains downstream. The rezoning of these lands from residential/agricultural to industrial/commercial will immediately lower the cleanup criteria for this entire affected area. That will potentially save Lanxess dozens to hundreds of millions of dollars. Does anyone really believe that that is simply a lucky happenstance for this multi national, multi billion dollar company?