City Offers $600,000 to Shredder, says "Scram"!
After years and years and years of public frustration with the glacial pace of state and local government intervention on their behalf against egregious polluter Jeff Eastridge, AKA CCE. inc., AKA CBE.inc, and a host of other cheap disguises, residents reacted with glee when told there would be another chance to demand state and local government intervention on their behalf against infamous Eastridge on Oct 14 @ 7pm at Fairmount Elementary.
2045 Silver Street New Albany"A staunch opponent of the move, Maurice King, who admitted to filing most of the complaints against Eastridge on behalf of the Fairmont Neighborhood Association, said the city allowed the problems to exist at the Silver Street location by not standing up in the past." (natribune)
According to public documents “Eastridge and selves” have a 100% defiance rating when it comes to community concerns.
2045 Silver Street New Albany
When asked to comment on public concerns about the background and price of the CCE deal, local resident Chris D. who called the CCE site "potentially VERY hazardous situation". We must pay for it."..."When attention was drawn to the plight of the property on Silver Street, certain factions pulled that attention away to other more pressing issues, such as a house with crap stacked in the yards. As such, it comes to us to pay for the mistakes of OUR government. Like it or not, thats just the way it has to be." (naconfidential)
2045 Silver Street New Albany
Mr. Eastridge, through his hired guns, "contended the contamination tests were skewed, and that they are close to having the property cleared of any metal pollutants by IDEM." Speaking for the record, NA city Councilman Jack Messer said of Eastridge: “He has done nothing but give to this community”. (natribune)
2045 Silver Street New Albany
The Poisoned Valley Batterers Society commented just before press time - “G.Coyle is standing in the way of every single thing we try to do here that smacks of progress.” The last thing we need is people asking a lot of questions around here, know what I mean?”
21 comments:
Chris, I'm just hoping you and others here who advocate for progress can learn to get out of the way of yourselves. Simply thinking I'm somehow "the problem" is in fact - THE PROBLEM. While you and others have fun attacking me personally for taking uncomfortable public positions that actually are in service of the larger community, you deserve the ghetto you got.
Personally, I don't want to live anyplace going forward where the costs of cleaning up past "messes" prevents any sustainable development. As an investor and potential investor, that is how I recoup my investments.
ps...I have no intention of editing anyone's comments short of the usual civil constraints of productive dialogue and fact-finding.
chris -"The news story could be CCE's attempts to shift costs of pollution around."
Chris, step back from your computer, take a deep breath, look at some birds at the feeder... you are having a panic attack.
Please save all your energy for the meeting Wednesday night with CCe viz. City Hall.
It's OK, you're just having a "battered town syndrome" attack right now, I understand. But when you calm down and realize I'm on your side and we're all against the abusers ie. POLLUTERS and RAPACIOUS EXTRACTORS, we'll all move forward.
Ms. Coyle
You are undoubtedly free to post as you will on your blog.
And you are with out a doubt entitled to your opinions.
However I must publicly protest the way you make it seem like everyone is against you for no reason, when you know that is not the case.
I deleted my comments as my temper got the best of me, and I apologize for the immaturity.
However, it is important to note that while you cite on carefully edited post of mine, out of hundreds on the subject, and stories in the paper, you failed to mention that I have been in the trench of this battle since day one.
I worked as a mediator between the Fairmont neighborhood association and Eastridge, worked with a panel from the solid waste office regarding the property, have corresponded with various persons at IDEM, EPA, City Government, County Government, private industry trying to reach a conclusion that would retain both the jobs at CCE as well as the safety, and well being of the community at large.
I my also remind you that I spoke out against the move to 111 for CCE, even though it would have gotten out of our neighborhood in a matter of weeks, and I did so for the good of the community.
One disagreement over whether Daniels story about the meeting Wednesday night got completely blown out of proportion, and I was basically shown in a bad light as an act of "revenge" for that simple disagreement.
But as I said, you are entitled to posting your opinions and translation of the facts, how you choose to present that is up to you. I know what I have done, my family knows, as well as my friends and neighbors. One persons errant opinion can not and will not change that.
Have fun.
Chris, you support the city paying $600,000 for the CCE site. I don't at the moment.
My house is only one of hundreds of distressed historic properties (think of them as a brownfield of buildings); CCE is only one of hundreds of brownfields in the county.
Wouldn't it be nice if government were so overburdened with funds that we could just buy all those problems up and fix 'em.
My take on the local political capital is, there isn't any.
So how do we as a community achieve the maximum remediation of past damage for our money?
This issue isn't going away and it just gets more expensive the longer we wait.
Exactly.
Distressed historic homes, and hazardous industrial sites are apples and oranges Gina.
A distressed historic house may negatively effect the surrounding property values, at worst.
A hazardous industrial site can effect the health, safety and well-being of the entire community.
Can we afford the risk to not take this chance and rid ourselves of this company, I think not.
The history of CCE and its environmentally abusive ways starts long before Silver Street, and now has pretty much permanently damaged a fragile wetlands.
Cease and desist orders did not work. Nearly 100 citations and violations from IDEM did not work.
A lawsuit being filed did not work.
Mediation did not work. And each time something did not go their way, they made the situation worse, and we were on the front lines stopping it for the sake of the city, while keeping it here in our backyards.
Junkyards, hazardous chemical storage facilities, heavy trucking waste transfer station, a private sanatation dump site are just a few of the items he tried to put in, and he found a back door and slipped in the tire shredding deal under everyones noses, while he was busy scheduling for zoning variations, getting the opposition focused and centered on the project du jour, and would cancel at the last minute, time and time again.
While we were researching, travelling, speaking with consultants on his various never intended schemes, he had brought in the tires under a IDEM permit that allowed 10,000 tires.
Before anyone knew it, he had probably 50,000 or more.
Discarded tires ended up showing up in alleys around here, in yards, in Fairmont elementaries back feild used for youth sports, etc...
Now we can back out on buying the property, easy enough, and face the possibilities of pressing the lawsuit. Meanwhile he keeps operating, pulluting and dumping. A few years from now, IF we win the lawsuit, then there are years more of appeals on the judgement, and he keeps operating, and polluting.
By the time its all said and done and we have spent hundreds of thousands of tax dollars on consultants, lawyers, filings, appeals, site testing, etc...
IN the end we will spend more than we will ever recoup.
Or we can take the chance we are given, buy him out at half the value of the property, his half will pay for the clean up.
Retain the property in the cities name, develop a clean, environmentally friendly small light industrial park, create jobs, collect lease payments from the site, increase tax revenues.
You have to take off the fiscally conservative blinders sometimes to be able to see the bigger picture.
Personally, I would like to see the fry. Be fined the maximum daily fine for violations of Light industrial I1A zoning laws, be forced to pay out of his pocket for the clean up, set on a pole and paraded out of town.
But I know, as well as you know, that day will NEVER come.
Chris, CCE, as a business, must follow applicable laws.
Apparently every request for help enforcing the laws has been a dead-end.
We now have environmental problems.
It is not my responsibility as a taxpayer to pay for businesses to clean up after themselves. Don't get me started on bank bail-outs...
What you suggest makes no sense within a legal framework. You have a pattern of violations and damages, you file suit to force compliance.
Where did this looney idea that we the taxpayers would just take if off his hands for market value if after 10 years he wanted to stomp off pissed 'cause his lawbreaking ways are making people pester 'em??
We are not taking at market value, we are taking it for half of market value, and less than what he paid for it in the first place if I remember correctly.
Sometimes, Gina, somethings rise above "money". This is one of those times.
This man will not hesitate to spend every red cent fighting to keep from having to follow the laws. And every one cent he spends fighting, we have to spend two chasing.
I can not stand bail outs either, people should pay the piper that they brought to town.
But this is one instance, and the only one instance where I have ever seen that buying the property to put the business under actually makes sense, and for the betterment of the community at large.
If you dont believe me, take a ride down to 111 and Corydon pike and ask the Great Blue Herons, the Egrets, Green herons, and assorted amphibians, fish and invertibrates who had all ready had a few tons of shredded tires dumped in the creek flowing into the wetland down there.
Try and find the family of American Kestral (smallest north american raptor) that used to hunt the property at Silver street for insects, small rodents (field mice), and lizards... they are all gone now, save one older bird who more than likely in his final days.
Come on out to the meeting tonight and tell the people who have been getting the used tires dumped in their yards and alleyways, I got a new one last night, tell the residents on Mann Court whose home shack and vibrate all the time from the tire shredding machines, or whose view out their windows are of 40 and 50 foot tall piles of shredded tires.
I understand where you are coming from Gina, I truly do. However in this particular instance, this IS the best solution for the city as a whole.
By the way, are you willing to address the subject regarding not buying the property and continuing the lawsuit and what will happen if we do?
Gina & Chris,
As you both know, I fall somewhere between both of your positions.
Mr. Eastridge is not offering to sell his property at "half" the market value. It may be half the appraised value but there is a difference. Paying 600k for real estate and 600k for cleanup equal 1.2 million. No room for error or "profit".
If we paid, say, 500k for the real estate, we have 100k cushion for extra cleanup expenses and/or "profit". You can also look at the "profit" as a "fine" collected from Mr. Eastridge in return for dropping the court cases.
To say that the taxpayers shouldn't bail out "problems" is great rhetoric but not very realistic. Bailing out the banks didn't just save the "fat cats". Real people were going to pay one way or other. If you want to tar and feather the top 30 executives(fat cats)--go ahead. Sometimes it's the same with cleaning up problem environmental sites. It just needs to be done.
If the whole town is an environmental site that needs clean-up, let's assume, what is the rational for paying off this particular polluter, not every polluter who will then ask for the same deal?
If the issue is top priority environmental remediation of industrial pollution - where is the survey of all the comparable sites in county? Are we saying we'll offer market price to any owner of a brownfield??
Chris - let's not argue about the facts of this CCE case anymore. The facts are NA would be better off without Eastridge and his tires. No one disputes that.
I am disputing the manner in which we are proceeding with issue cause there are 100 more just like waiting in the wings.
Agreed.
We will simply leave it at disagreeing.
There are too many deep seated questions lurking in my head anyway regarding some access obtain to posted pictures, and public opposition to the deal anyway.
"Sometimes it's the same with cleaning up problem environmental sites. It just needs to be done." Mark, agree when there is a really compelling reason like the new YMCA.
Good Morning Gina,
Forgive me if my spelling and such is extra bad, not used to functioning at 4:30 in the morning!
I videoed about an hour and 10 minutes of the 2 hour meeting last night, and have copies of the EPA grant application papers if you would like to take a peek at them.
If I am understanding correctly, the city will attempt to do this deal with grant money, and then after that, using TIF funding from the Monon corridor for the rest.
ONce I am able to get some sleep tonight, I will review the digital video and re-read the application guidelines and such.
Just been a long 48 hours right now.
Chris, thanks for videotaping...
Would have loved to get the entire meeting, but I ran out of memory card.
*note to self do not record long-winded public meetings in HD, use standard formatting....
Chris, if you need help editing it down into something "news-nuggety" I have a fast set-up.
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