Council Meeting Report

As promised, we went to the Wallingford Neighborhood Council meeting tonight and, we are sad to report, there were no displays of supernatural strangling (although we admit to a brief daydream involving our outstretched hand and one muttering nutjob). On the bright side, Council President Mary Heim confided that she dressed in black in the hopes of living up to our vision of her in the Vader role.

Wallyhood will now seek to earn our keep and boil down the main topic of the 2+ hour meeting into a series of short bullet points. If you want to feel as if you were there in the flesh, re-read these 80 times in row (ideally with someone muttering about “push polls” and “ethics” while you try to talk):

• There is a solid waste transfer station (aka “dump”, although Timothy Croll of the SPU would prefer you not call it that) at 34th and Carr Place.
• The city would like to upgrade it to a more modern facility (“cutting edge, as good or better than any in the country” according to Rob Gala, legislative aide to city councilman Richard Conlin), one that is better able to handle the volume of waste, better suited for sorting recyclables and organics from landfill-bound trash and better contains odors.
• Nearby residents wish the whole thing would just go away (preferably to somewhere like Georgetown, which, according to the mutterer, is already nothing but “drunks, bums and airports”), noting the ill effects of garbage and toxics spilling from station-bound trucks
• The city has not performed an Environmental Impact Study (EIS); the residents think they should and have brought suit to require it.
• The city claims that whatever they do, it’s going to be better than what’s there, so there’s no point to the EIS.
• Residents would like to understand what the hazards are so they can make sure they’re addressed, and look to the non-existent EIS for that information.

Wallyhood has tilted at our fair share of windmills in our day, so we can’t disparage those who hope to shift the location of the transfer station to Georgetown or Interbay or Anywhere But Here, we tend to agree with Gala, that the transfer station isn’t going to move, so the sooner the conversation shifts to what improvements can be made to it and to the surrounding neighborhood and away from whether changes will occur, the better.

There were several other issues discussed, as well, including a Wallingford Farmer’s Market report and the McDonald School Project, but Wallyhood has our own project, and he’s 11 weeks old and needs his diaper changed, so those will have to wait for future posts. Good night.