If Elmer Fudd had attended Tuesday’s Biddeford City Council meeting, he may have made the following observation about our city councilors:
“Those wascly wabbits seemed especially wambunctious last night.”
Fudd’s assessment matches my own observations.
Watching the councilors in action, I actually began to wonder whether a couple of our council critters had skipped their required rabies vaccinations, especially when they began talking about a favorite City Hall subject: solid waste disposal.
If you missed the meeting, then you also missed a rare opportunity to hear one of the city’s most eloquent and handsome residents address the council about the contentious issues surrounding trash and recycling.
No, Jim Grattelo did not show up last night.
It was me — yours truly — the voice of logic, reason and nicotine addiction from Ward Seven.
At issue is the perennial topic of how to both increase the city’s recycling rate and reduce the amount of trash we send to the Maine Energy Recovery Company, where household waste is recycled into electricity.
Council President Rick Laverierre seemed ready to explode or at least pop a button on his new suit, when he railed against the concept of a pay-per-bag trash collection system.
“This is not a Maine Energy thing,” he said, ignoring the obvious and hoping to avoid taking a public stance on a very controversial issue.
Laverierre strongly supports sending no less than two referendums to the city’s voters.
The first referendum would ask voter permission to even allow the council to discuss or say the words “pay-per-bag,” and the second referendum (a few months later) would ask the voters whether they approve a plan. Seriously.
For the first time in 192 years, I found myself in agreement with Councilors David Flood and Richard Rhames.
The last time the three of us agreed on a topic was in 1820, when we published a joint op-ed in the Boston Globe, making the case for Maine’s secession from the state of Massachusetts.
The opening line of that editorial proves the piece was a collaborative effort:
“For whatever. Massachusetts blows. We need another state where Democrats can control the Legislature.”
Back to last night’s meeting. Rhames, for a brief moment in time, seemed lucid with a firm grasp of the obvious.
Rhames reminded his fellow councilors that they will soon be forced to review the city’s waste disposal contract.
“This council needs to be grappling with this issue,” he said. “This matter is roaring up on us. It is not a simple issue and, unfortunately, we have not yet begun to consider our position.”
But Councilor Michael Swanton expressed doubts about how much the city would save its taxpayers by forcing the Solid Waste Commission to devise a plan that could increase the city’s recycling rate. “I ran the numbers at home,” he said. “And I figured out that I would save about 37 cents per week by recycling more.”
The council, however, did seem to agree on one thing: trash disposal involves a lot of fluctuating numbers, a good pair of rubber gloves and the willingness not to hoard No.2 plastic bottles.
Ultimately, the council voted 8-1 (Laverierre opposed) to kick the can down the road for another few weeks by sending a resolution to the Solid Waste Commission that seeks to increase the city’s recycling rate.
Take the money and run
Earlier in the evening, the council took up the issue of ethics, pondering whether to amend the city’s ordinances to require members of the Planning Board to sign a code of ethics.
It should be noted that members of the city council are not required to sign a code of ethics.
As I have explained to my children, whether you should take a 10-dollar bill from your mother’s purse is NOT an ethical dilemma.
It is a crime.
An ethical dilemma is a situation in which both choices have merit and must be carefully weighed against one’s own values and belief system.
At first blush, it seems more than reasonable to ask city officials to sign a code of ethics. But a closer examination of the proposed language reveals some glaring problems that leap off the pages and then steal money from your mother’s purse.
For example, Councilor David Flood (my neighbor, former employer and BFF) pointed out that by signing the code, planning board members would be required to only do reasonable things that also “appear to be reasonable.” Again, I’m not kidding.
If this same standard were applied to the city council, we would not have a city council.
Upon realization of this quandary, the council pondered their own ethical dilemma and rejected adopting a code of ethics for other people to follow.
Smart move.
In other business, the council put the brakes on a proposed policy that would allow the city to accept private contributions for public infrastructure.
After hearing further words of wisdom from yours truly about the slippery slope of unintended consequences, the council decided to send the proposed policy to the “Policy” Committee for further review and clarification.
If you would like to have Randy Seaver speak to your civic club, organization or rehab group, please send an e-mail to randy@randyseaver.com
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LESSONS IN MEDIOCRITY 