Corporations dump on our courts...again

It's interesting that corporations express outrage when individual citizens and our elected government agencies "clog up the courts" to address a grievance. Yet, here again, a corporation is trying to use the court system to increase its profits at taxpayers' expense. This time its the landfill company who wants to push around the locals who currently have control over how much garbage can be put in their township and counties. (MRC, 2010)

Previous courts have ruled in favor of local planning commissions who want to limit and collect taxes to recover costs to citizens for the roads, inspections, losses from environmental degradation, loss of other business investments, etc. Those decisions just weren't good enough for Pitsch Disposal Corp. They want to shift the balance of power from the locals to themselves.

If Pitsch wins in Ionia Circuit Court, it will set a precedent for control of all Michigan land use and planning commissions and taxing authorities. Likely Clinton County Board of Commissioners will have significantly reduced say about garbage that is received into our boundaries. This is pretty scary, given we are home to two landfills.

(Court of Appeals Docket 2007-08 showing the many briefs by Pitsch which our gov't must respond to) 
(The relevant regulation can be found at R 299.4119 page 22 of DEQ regulations)

The Smell of Old, Worn-out Ideas

Clinton County hosts 2 landfills -- a disproportionate number given the County's population. Our past leadership allowed us to become the garbage dump of mid-Michigan. People driving northbound on US-27 wrinkle their noses shortly after crossing Lake Lansing Road. Drivers entering Clinton County on I-96 at the north-east end will occasionally get a big awful whiff of the Landfill in Grand Ledge. Now the County residents are also downwind of a garbage incinerator at the airport.

An invitation

Two a.m. is probably not the best time to start a blog, especially a political blog that could be picked apart by critics in the daylight. However, 2:00 a.m. is when volunteers like myself (and other progressives and liberal commoners) are forced to find time and resources. We don't have super-wealthy corporations pushing an agenda with well-equipped and paid staff to produce polished essays and videos and uber-edited sound-bite friendly slogans. What I believe we do have, is a large scattered set of individual critical thinkers, who could bring deep and broad analysis to issues that concern residents of mid-Michigan and Clinton County in particular.

So I'm inviting locals to take a few turns at blogging on topics that you have special knowledge of, topics that concern you, or that should concern everyone. Let's use this space to explore facts and feelings, persuade AND listen respectfully, learn from each other, and build a common body of knowledge. I'll get the ball rolling in a minute, but then I invite you to contact me or one of the executive officers to become a temporary or regular blogger here. I can be reached at online@clintoncountydems.com. Write soon.

Now on to an interesting quiz I came across tonight. politicalcompass.org. It did take me 5-10 minutes to complete the quiz, but it was well worth it. I'd be interested to hear from any other classical music listeners who took it. Did you also discover that your favorite composers have similar political leanings? More importantly, how does this model help people like myself make connections between the two predominate groups in northern Clinton County -- the Libertarians and the Catholics? I can empathize with each group on a few different issues, but alas, according to this model, they will often be politically opposite of each other. It seems that this may be part of the ongoing social struggle to increase personal freedoms while still reaping the benefits of group cooperation.