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Please
remember to vote September 11
We
are a non-profit organization and as a group we make no
candidate endorsements.
We
have received the following statements from candidates
running for Council District 4, vacant due to the death of
Councilman John Ferraro.
We
feel obligated to keep all of our community informed of
any matter that involves the community in which we live.
We have made our best effort to contact all the
candidates running and if we received no response we used
the candidates last public response if available.
We
hope that the following allows you to make an informed
decision.
The future of the Sunshine Canyon Dump is a tough
issue. As a city council person, I will work with other
members of the council and the mayor to make sure we come
up with a compromise on the expansion of the
Sunshine Canyon dump that carefully takes into
consideration the health and safety of residents living
near the facility. I would want to hold more public
hearings to get a clearer picture of what the issues are.
The City Council's vote to approve the expansion of
Sunshine Canyon Dump has clearly given residents in the
North Valley the dangerous impression that the City was
not looking out for their best interest. The private
company that operates the dump facility must be held
accountable for
ensuring our health and safety.
Susan Fong
I am
opposed to expansion of the Sunshine Canyon dump. The city should not place the interests of the landfill
operator ahead of the neighborhoods.
Increased recycling efforts must play a role in
alleviating the situation and we must look at other
options other than using the Valley as a dumping ground.
Beth
Garfield
I
am opposed to the Sunshine Canyon dump. We must be
careful about exposing our children to harmful carcinogens
in our trash. I am a supporter of a clean environment. To
me the Sierra Club is more important than real estate and
manufacturing developers.
Larry Green
At the North
Hollywood Residents Association
all the candidates present were asked to how they
felt about toilet to tap and
the Sunshine Canyon landfill expansion.
Tom Labonge said that he
“agreed with the expansion with mitigation.”
Tom
Labonge
If I were
“that one vote” , you would be safe!
Nothing I’ve read, heard or studied about this
project convinces me I should vote to approve the Sunshine
Canyon Dump project...Nothing!
Money can
never take the place of the value of human life.
One of the
things I believe should be done now is to remove all the
recyclables that over crowd our existing landfills.
This would give us the needed space until we can
employ technologies that exist to eradicate the problem.
And, it would put all those recyclables back into
circulation.
We must
fight this….and win!
Linda
Lockwood
The Sunshine
Canyon Dump expansion should never have been approved and,
if elected, I pledge that I will do everything in my power
to stop the planned expansion. Three of the four leading
candidates have taken massive amounts of campaign
contributions from special interests, lobbyists and
developers. Their commitments are to their campaign
contributors, not to residents of the area. Of the four,
only I have not, nor will I, take any money from
lobbyists, special interests or developers, so my
commitments are to constituents only. Sunshine Canyon,
like the Billboard Ordinance before it, only shows the
negative and cynical impact on the political process by
big money contributors. We need to bring to this city a
more open and accountable governmental process to prevent
disasters like Sunshine Canyon in the future.
Sincerely,
Richard
MacMinn
As an avid
environmental activist who began my political career at
age 12 getting arrested while protesting the San Onofre
Nuclear Power Plant I can unequivocally tell you that I
oppose the Sunshine Canyon Landfill.
We need to
increase recycling for both businesses and residences and
stop creating more and more landfills. I also support
giving neighborhood councils real decision-making power
over planning and land use so that projects like this will
be discussed and decided by the community which will have
to live with them.
Denise
Munro
Robb
There is no
good alternative toward waste disposal in the case of
Sunshine Canyon. The consequence of closing Sunshine down
would be to transport waste east to either Eagle Mountain
next to Joshua Tree National Monument, or to Mesquite
Canyon in sensitive parts of the California desert.
Neither of these is an entirely satisfactory solution. We
cannot speak of “environmental justice” and at the
same time close a landfill which will cause tremendous
amounts of trash to be transported along Interstate 10 and
especially Highway 60 – the Pomona Freeway – that
already have high levels of trash trucks and trash
facilities running and operating within the poorest
neighborhoods. In addition, active landfills do not appear
to be as major a problem as closed landfills. In the 1980s
stringent restrictions were placed on the engineering and
construction of active landfills. Consequently, a
“violation” at Sunshine is not even remotely
comparable to one at a closed landfill like Toyon in
Griffith Park.
So what is
the answer? More waste reduction, recycling, and more
educational programs on what we can do to reduce, reuse
and recycle our trash. As a member for the past four years
of the California Integrated Waste Management Board I have
worked to fund innovative solutions to reducing our trash
output and also to increase penalties for violators.
As a Board
member, I have personally visited every landfill,
municipal recycling facility, and transfer station in Los
Angeles and Orange Counties. As a Council member I will be
open to all concerns on ways we can best reduce any
problem as it may relate to the health or inconvenience of
people who live near waste facilities and transportation
corridors
David
Roberti
District 4
as you know, consists only of that Valley area from
Burbank border to Colfax, and area south of Chandler, and
does not include the proposed Dump site.
I have no
donations from any special interest involved in that
project and as a Councilman I would not accept donations
from anyone having scheduled hearings with the Council.
I strongly favor alternative technologies and
location, and having had a substantial Nevada rental
investment for years I have been very sensitive to the
Dump issue, the federal plans for storage of nuclear waste
in Nevada, and would be vigilant to protect Valley
residential areas even though it was not within my
district; councilmen do have a responsibility for the
whole community too.
Mike
Schaefer
I am
unequivocally in favor of closing down the Sunshine Canyon
Landfill for four distinct reasons:
1) A promise
was made to the residents that the contract would not be
extended or renewed.
A promise made should be a promise kept; it was
wrong to break this promise due to pressure from BFI,
their lobbyists and their money.
2) The
benefits of the dump do not stand up to the negative
environmental and quality of life impacts on the
community. The
dump is too close to homes, schools and water treatment
facilities to be safe or tolerable.
The dump should not be expanded and should, in
fact, be closed.
3) The voice
of the people negatively impacted by the dump should be
listened to, not the spin of BFI, their lobbyists or their
campaign contributions.
4) The
landfill is not necessary: the bulk of the trash isn’t
from Los Angeles and by utilizing remote locations,
material recovery facilities and recycling, we can easily
get by without it.
Ferris
Wehbe
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