By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org
Waste Management’s attempt to corral Coconut Creek’s longstanding opposition to expanding the mountainous, odoriferous Monarch Hill landfill with offers of cash and environmental incentives fell flat Monday afternoon when city commissioners voted unanimously to reject it.
City staff, fearing the Broward County Commission will vote 24 hours later to allow Waste Management to take the north Broward dump’s height up to 325 feet – growing the equivalent of a 10-story building – and add 24.6 acres to its footprint, hastily negotiated the proposal with the Houston-based trash disposal giant. It includes at least $2.5 million in cash for recycling “education,” environmental considerations, and up to $30 million in payouts to the city if the company seeks future increases in height, footprint or slope at the landfill.
City Manager Sheila Rose called Monday’s meeting, on Veteran’s Day, in apparent hopes of winning passage of Waste Management’s offer before the county votes.
Rose called the proposal “the city’s back up plan” – essentially a way to salvage some benefit should the county approve the Monarch Hill expansion. She noted that since the 1980s Waste Management repeatedly has expanded the dump and always “assured all of us that this expansion they were proposing…was the last and the very last time they would expand the landfill only for it to have expanded time and time again.”
Waste Management reported it had revenues of $20.43 billion in 2023. Nevertheless, Rose described the $30 million in possible future payouts to the city should Waste Management again request expansion as a “poison pill” to discourage it from ever happening again.
“They have sworn they would never do that,” Rose said.
After news of the quietly arranged deal and the special holiday meeting was published by Florida Bulldog on Sunday, opposition quickly arose.
DEERFIELD BEACH MAYOR ‘STUNNED’ BY NEWS
Deerfield Beach Mayor Bill Ganz and Vice Mayor Todd Drosky, allies of Coconut Creek in opposing the dump’s expansion, showed up to excoriate their neighbors and denounce the proposal.
“I’m stunned to find out about this clandestine agreement at the eleventh hour,” said Ganz. “No professional courtesy was given us. I was informed about his not by your staff or any of you. I found out about this by reading of this on a political watchdog’s website.” He called Rose a “rogue city manager.”
“To say that something stinks today goes without saying; for once it’s not the landfill,” said Drosky. “This was a meeting I found out about this morning from my city manager after an article appeared yesterday on the Florida Bulldog website.”
Former Coconut Creek Mayor Becky Tooley told commissioners they should support the proposal. “I don’t think you are selling out…I think you are doing the right thing. Go for it.”
But while Tooley wasn’t a lone voice, she was clearly outnumbered by a half dozen city residents who stood up in opposition and ultimately, each of the city’s five commissioners.
“This is a Waste Management buy off. We’re lying to ourselves if we don’t say that,” said Commissioner Joshua Rydell. “Does it give us some feel-good protections? Sure. But it is what it is.”
“I’d rather go in there and lose fighting, than roll over and win,” said Commissioner John Brodie. “I ran on this thing being closed. We need to demand it be closed.” He said Waste
Said Vice Mayor Jackie Railey, “I’m from Brooklyn. In Brooklyn we fight…There is no amount of money that could buy us off at the expense of our residents. If feel that if this went through, we could never be trusted again.’’
In the end, Commissioner Jeffrey Wasserman and Mayor Sandra Welch agreed.
Commissioners were supportive of City Manager Rose and her staff’s efforts to find a helpful proposal. Still they would not support the proposal itself.
Toward the end of Monday’s meeting talk turned to whether one bus or two would be needed to transport city residents to downtown Fort Lauderdale for Tuesday’s county commission meeting on the Monarch Hill expansion set to begin at 1:30 p.m.
Deerfield Beach also plans to bus its unhappy residents to the commission’s chambers.
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