District 2 constituents want rep to stand and fight against landfill

Untitled from Jordan Green on Vimeo.

District 2 Councilman Jim Kee told residents that the Greensboro City Council appears to have made the decision to reopen the White Street Landfill, and that he thinks it's important to make sure that people who live nearby don't suffer from noise pollution, heavy truck traffic and rodents as a result.

That didn't sit well with many constituents.

"My stand, and I'm sure everyone in the room's stance, is no compromise," Maurice Warren said, adding, "All that you're talking about is compromise."

One woman, exemplary of a spirit of resistance in the audience tonight at Laughlin Memorial United Methodist Church, said, "I marched in the streets in the sixties with Jesse. I will do it again."

Goldie Wells, who represented District 2 before retiring from council two years ago, promised opponents that pro bono legal counsel was preparing to file for an injunction to block the reopening of the landfill. Considerable discussion was held about an advertising campaign to publicize information about the landfill. One man, John Rick, handed over a check for $1,000. Wasif Qureshi of the Islamic Center of Greensboro, a neighboring mosque, pledged another $1,000 on behalf of his congregation.

"I think it has been established that the council the council has decided to go forward with the landfill," Wells said. "And our councilman has decided to make concessions on our behalf."

Then she asked if residents were willing to compromise. The answer was a resounding no.

While the narrow majority on council that favors reopening the landfill has offered no indication that they are willing to reconsider, opponents expressed equal resolution to fight the decision.

Marikay Abuzuaiter, a member of the Greensboro Human Relations Commission, said expects that an ad hoc committee of the commission will have a resolution in opposition to the landfill on the agenda for the city council's next meeting.

Dianne Bellamy-Small, who represents District 1, said she so objected to Mayor Bill Knight's threat to clear council chambers of people disrupted the meeting that she was prepared to be the first to be arrested.

She said she is pressuring the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce to take a stand against the landfill.

"I just got a phone call from them saying they want us to save their 10 percent in the budget," Bellamy-Small said. "I ain't hearing them because they ain't hearing me."

Kee said in defense of the Greensboro Partnership, which closely coordinates with the chamber, that he met with them twice and at the time they were interested in vetting a number of alternative technology approaches. Now that the council has narrowed the options to two companies proposing to reopen the landfill, Kee said it would be good to get the partnership and the chamber to take a stand.

ADDENDUM: One thing the landfill opponents would like to accomplish with an ad buy is to challenge the notion that the landfill was there before the resident were, and with it notion that the siting of the landfill was and is about race. That perspective gained currency with a 2009 opinion column by the News & Record's Allen Johnson describing how he moved into neighboring Woodmere Park as a child with his family in 1968 when it was still predominantly white.

Supporting the assertion that the people came before the landfill, Wells said tonight that the Neal family, which is black, lived in the area as far back as the 1880s, and that some members of the family sold off some of their property to the city for the landfill. The Neals, one of whom spoke at a rally held recently at the landfill, are the namesake of Nealtown Road and the Nealtown Farms community.