First and foremost thank goodness we are finally ridding ourselves of the too popular by half Sandy Shantz. She has delivered bad governance with a smile, speaks softly and tries to offend no one. Unfortunately the public have lapped that crap up. Maybe in her private life she really is the good person I thought she was over a dozen years ago but her positions and decisions in office have harmed the public interest. Most likely they have assisted her husband's and family's business interests but if so that too appears to have flown under the radar. Maybe it's all been scrupulously according to the rules; I really don't know for sure.
Her positions on both the east side expansion and by-pass onto contaminated properties combined with her heavily pro polluter/corporate biases regarding Chemtura and Lanxess will be her eventual reputational downfall. She has bent over backwards to accommodate corporate self-interests that have resulted in her and their gross failures to either restore Elmira's drinking water or to so much as clean up a single shovel full of downstream dioxins, DDT, mercury and PCBs in the Canagagigue Creek. Wildlife, the environment and human beings have suffered because of those failures.
My comments on a regional housecleaning are due to both the Wilmot Land Grab (770 acres) democratic failures of transparency and communications as well as the still ongoing regional water crisis that they now claim is "solved". We are in big, long lasting water trouble and that is all due to past negligence and incompetence combined with the similar mentioned above municipal "pro polluter/corporate biases". Slamming gates shut after the livestock have all left rarely is an effective strategy.
Regarding our municipal councillors I am conflicted. Yes I will have no regrets if Nathan Cadeau is unelected based upon multiple early interactions with him over Lanxess that I found distasteful. Other than that I do not have strong feelings for or against the other councillors mostly based upon really not knowing them at all. That said I do kind of grudgingly like Eric Schwindt despite believing that he is considerably more right wing and pro business than myself. Somehow he has conveyed to me a willingness at least to listen with an open mind. Time will confirm or deny that. Evan Burgess appears to be more mature than his chronological age and with seasoning I can hope that he too will expand and flourish. Maybe that comment is based more on my age than on his. Again time will tell. Bonnie and Kayla have shown commonsense on various issues and I wish them well.
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