My Remarks at the Cary Board Meeting

Here are my remarks at the Cary Board Meeting in regard to Meyer material and their annual presentation and the forthcoming request for an extension:

My name is Bruce Janu.  I live in the Fox Trails subdivision.  I am here to speak for a moment about Meyer Material Company.  As you know, they are wanting to extend the conditional use permit.  We all knew that they were never going to finish on time---we said this over and over again back in 2007-08.  In 2011, they came to ask for an extension, claiming that the economic downturn has prevented them from finishing on time.  They ended up withdrawing the petition and here we are with one year left--conveniently---and Meyer is asking again. With new reasons.

Now, there's too much dirt.   There's not enough time, because of the limits placed on their mining operations that they had originally agreed to.  

However, some things to consider:  Since withdrawing the petition, Meyer has not added more heavy equipment to the property.  Has not increased the workforce. Has not made any attempt to finish on time.  They're just expecting to be given the extension. That was the plan all along.

What I find interesting is that in the original deal, they sought a 2 year timeframe to reclaim the land. Now, they are going to do it in one year. They can speed that up, but not the mining?  Seems a little suspect to me. 

In their report, they are going to talk about how a good corporate citizen they are---by allowing kids to visit on field trips and maintaining parks and what not. Don't forget, this good corporate citizen has threatened to walk away from the property leaving it as is if they don't get what they want. Yeah, that's good corporate citizenship. 

And now they want to reduce the amount of money in their letters of credit?  I don't think that would be a smart thing for the Village to do. I cannot just stop paying my mortgage because of an economic downturn....or too much dirt in my lawn.  That is why we have contracts in the first place and the residents of Fox Trails can not be responsible for their bad decisions.  

And remember, Meyer is owned by a global corporation that sees over 16 billion dollars in revenue every year.  

This is going to be a long process, we know.  But we cannot start this process by reducing their economic burden. Vote no on the reduction of the amount in their letters of credit.  Thank you for your time, you'll be seeing more of me, I'm sure. More information can be found at noquarry.blogspot.com.

I attempted to video record these comments, but my iPad froze as I went up to the podium.  Next time...