Teachers Nanelle Bacon and C.W.
Collins aren’t here to tell you, but Tim Cockfield is. I stumbled through algebra. That’s why I took
postsecondary algebra at Waycross Junior College in the summer. With the tutorial help of John Oglesby, I
drove back to UGA on Highway 15, leaving those confusing equations in my
rearview mirror. But when it comes to
numbers, I can “do figures,” as the old folks say.
How
long has Wayne County been in this toxic coal-ash quagmire? By my count, it’s been about 670 days since
that shocking announcement in January 2016.
And if you’re counting the times that I’ve expressed my opinions on the
subject, the exact number is 73. If it
takes 173 times, I am willing to keep pushing to help get us out of this
uncalled-for pollution-risking purgatory.
More
than once, I’ve referred to the late Dr. Norman Vincent Peale: “There’s no right way to do a wrong thing.” Republic Services did the wrong thing when it
tried to slip a Corps of Engineers’ rail-spur application by us using the name
of its unknown-to-us subsidiary, Central Virginia Properties LLC. And Wayne County did the wrong thing by
agreeing to a contract that allows the landfill operator to have its way with
us, allowing Republic to turn our county into an environmental prostitute.
We bit the
money bait, and thus the nation’s second-largest waste-management company has
us trapped. That’s what the Wall Street giant
had hoped, but now we know that’s not completely the case. If you attended last week’s Solid Waste
Authority meeting, you witnessed the exchange of legal opinions. The
back-and-forth was a reminder that lawyers—by nature—make their livings by
disagreeing with one another.
Sometimes,
there’s no way to avoid litigation. But
in this situation, I believe the best alternative can be reached at the
bargaining table. In my opinion,
Republic has not been completely forthright in keeping the public
informed. There’s strong belief that
there has been fudging on local laws to accomplish expansion. Republic argues not.
In hindsight,
our commissioners would have probably balked at a regional landfill if they
could have foreseen 2017’s consequences.
But as sure as there are wetlands in Broadhurst, Republic is here and
doing business. It has a grandfathered
right to operate. But if Republic wants
to live up to its “good-neighbor” ambition, the cat-and-mouse game has to
cease. Otherwise, the current mood of
distrust will not go away.
When the new
“good-neighbor” proposal was presented in July, I asked for a spreadsheet
spelling out the financial ramifications for the citizens of Wayne County and Republic. We were told there was no such
computation. Now, Republic officials
have criticized your newspaper for printing “misleading” financial
information. Last week, again, I asked
for the company’s projections. Republic’s
attorney waved me off, saying, “You can do the math.”
A basic rule in
any transaction is: “Follow the money.” Republic
is not helping itself with these evasive tactics. At the root of today’s distrust is Republic’s
2005 comment of “Oh, it’s just cleaning-up-some-clutter” language in the
contract. Today, we know the truth. What we need is less slippery legalese and
more easier-to-understand explanations.
I may not be a
mathematical genius, but I know how to build healthy relationships. If the goal is mutual goodwill, you don’t use
cat-and-mouse strategies. The time has
come for Republic to do the right thing—put its numbers on the table for us to
compare and discuss.
We really do
need to be “good neighbors.”
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com
