Wow! Talk about opportunists. Fred Messerle shadowed by Cam Parry just staged the most revolting dog and pony show I have seen in a long time. With Main attending by phone, Messerle has used the replacement of $13,000 worth of ducting that is easily isolated from the rest of the system as an excuse to shut down all three burners at the Beaver Hill facility, declare an emergency to contract with a company like Waste Connections to haul our trash to a landfill. Main, seconded a motion to expedite the bidding process but may not have understood that motion also included shutting down the entire plant for repairs.

To add to the drama, Messerle had management give an estimate for making the Beaver Hill facility shiny and beautiful again. The figure, $1.5 million was accompanied by the appropriate frowns and head shaking you would expect from confidence men trying to work a mark, in this case the taxpayer. Under the previous manager, Steve Allen, a lot of maintenance on the plant was deferred and money placed into a contingency fund that now totals more than $2.5 million. There is no requirement from DEQ that those funds be held to cover possible future closure costs. In other words, there is plenty of money to make overdue repairs to this valuable public investment without sending our trash to a remote landfill to benefit one company, Waste Connections, and put independent haulers out of work.

This commission is willing to throw away a multimillion dollar taxpayer investment to benefit one company and is going to use deferred maintenance as the excuse. There is more but I am way too angry right now but if anyone wondered who Messerle’s daddy is, now you know. The picture above depicts the type of management you can expect from Messerle, et al.