The 10 voters who voted to not accept the recommendations of the Peoria County Staff and its outside engineers had every right to vote yea or nay. I had the right to critique the no vote but no right to speculate on why board members voted and certainly no right to bring any personal feelings I evidently had that evening and especially for putting it on my blog site. I apologize to all that I offended.
We have been a pretty cohesive board up until this very divisive issue. All board members are good people and all have served the community in many different ways.
I ask the no voters to continue to study the evidence and the expert testimony and may this board make the best of a very uncomfortable situation for all concerned including the applicant.
I will continue to gather and put more facts on my blog site. I regret my unfair speculation and undignified finish to a very emotional evening.
My concern about the health of this community is no less than any who showed their concern in many ways. My efforts have always been to sort out the facts on any issue I have approached in my five year term on the county board.
For those who have speculated with the truth or made outright claims without evidence, I have no apology. But even for all those who have participated in this democratic process, I say thanks. I again remind my colleagues that the decision we make on May 3 must be made on as much factual information as possible.
4 comments:
This sounds as if you are adjourning the discussion of the landfill, Merle. Yes, you are correct. Anyone has the right to vote as he or she sees fit. All of you who sit on the board and all who vote for those who desire to continue to thus serve may vote our consciences.
Again, I urge you to reconsider. I do so mainly because I have seen NO EVIDENCE, no testimony nor papers presented to the board, demonstrating the very first requirement would be met by the expansion -- that it meets the needs of the area. I have repeatedly asked you to show me what you saw on this point.
The present landfill site will do that quite nicely, unless one defines the "area" as a multistate agglomeration of parcels, an area well outside the purview of the Peoria County Board.
In short, Merle, when it comes to this part of the issue, you have just avoided the discussion. By obfuscating, typing in volumes of other material on matters not germane to this single facet, you have proved my thesis.
The emporer has no clothes.
Merle, thank you. Your public apology for your speculation about others motives and yet your continued defense of your position has restored my faith in you sense of fairness and decency. Well done!
Yes, Matt, but the decision has to be made based on PDC's application demonstrating it meets the nine conditions of the LAW. Nowhere have I seen nor heard of even a scintilla of evidence demonstrating THE NEED for an expansion to serve this area. NOWHERE.
Matt, defense of an area where the entire board seems to be in agreement is merely prattle. It serves no purpose. If Merle must defend his position at all, it is in the three areas where he disagrees with the board's majority. I have tried to steer him toward one of those, but he won't go there. His refusal to do so demonstrates his stance on those issues has NO defense.
As I said above, the emporer has no clothes.
my focus is on the acknowledgment that his ad hominem attacks were inappropriate. I'll leave the merits of the argument on expansion to dispassionate analysis and due process. But when I publiclly called Merle for his attributing motives, I felt I owed an equally public attaboy when he recognized the excess.
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