Dayhoff Soundtrack: Westminster Common Council Members Frazier and Whitson weigh-in on incinerator and airport expansion

Monday, October 17, 2011

Westminster Common Council Members Frazier and Whitson weigh-in on incinerator and airport expansion

October 17, 2011

As a citizens of Westminster, we have wondered why some elected officials of Westminster haven’t publicly weighed in on issues that would have a large impact on Westminster. Now that we are elected Councilmen. we would like to let our views be known on two issues that we believe will impact Westminster. Here are our observations and concerns.

The first is the “waste to energy” incinerator that the county is currently thinking about building with Fredrick County. We are against it for several reasons:

The first of which is the cost to run it. There is a waste to energy incinerator in Montgomery County and every family in the county is charged a fee of several hundred dollars a year to keep it running. Do we need another fee in Carroll?

The incinerator also needs tremendous amounts of trash to keep it running, and needs the paper, cardboard and plastic that is and can be recycled to keep the operating temperatures high enough to run efficiently. That means that the paper cardboard and plastic that is currently being recycled in Carroll will be burned and not reused.

This is a linear system and we live in nature, which is a cyclical system. A linear system takes, makes, and wastes. It takes things from the resource base and makes whatever we want to buy and creates wastes along the way. Ultimately what is made is also thrown away and in this case it will be burned. We should try to treat our resources like nature in a close looped system. We need to reuse the paper, cardboard, plastic and other “trash” instead of burning it.

There are technologies in place that make this a more cost effective solution as well which have been recently shared with us at Council meetings.

One final note that should put an exclamation point on our reasoning is that the incinerator in Harrisburg is the main reason for the city going bankrupt recently!!

The other issue that we are against that is also being looked at is the airport expansion. I have not seen, read or heard of any way that the airport expansion will benefit the people of Westminster or Carroll County. If it will not somehow positively impact the welfare of the people than why spend the taxpayers money on it.

The present airport is continuously operating at a loss with no reason to think it will start to make a profit. The present debt is 5 million dollars and counting!

The Federal government wants to invest 73 million in it and make it bigger, but after that we will be in charge of the upkeep, which will cost us more money as well.

Marada, which was one of the main reasons for the expansion, is out of business!

Businesses are less likely to come to Maryland in general due to the heavy tax burden and our lower taxed neighbors.

If we accept Federal money, they will give us more mandates in what is required for the airport and have control, as opposed to local control, and we know how much money the Federal gov’t has right now. – 14 trillion and counting. Don’t think Carroll County is high on their priority list.

There are also environmental concerns relating to fuel being dropped on local fields/noise/ as well as homes/land that people have lived on their whole lives that would have to be condemned and forced to move elsewhere in these difficult times.

There is no reason that a county government should be running an airport in the first place. Governments are not good at being businesses and shouldn’t try to be businesses.

4 of the 5 Commmisioners ran on a platform that they were opposed to the airport expansion and they should keep their word!

If a business were running an airport it would be more efficient. In fact, we would be making money as a county if they turned a profit because the private company would be paying taxes. Since the county runs the airport there is no tax revenue coming in from the airport! When the county loses money, due to the airport losing money, We the People of Carroll County lose!

Dennis Frazier and Paul Whitson ( 410 916 3645 )