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Landfill issue money needed

Editor:

Once again the city of Elkins and Randolph County are facing another crisis with the Elkins-Randolph County Landfill.

Now we all know that the current administration has not put us in the current state of affairs we find the landfill in. But, we need to remember that some of the current City Council were serving back when this problem was discovered.

It seems to me that previous city councils have kicked the can down the road until this problem has gotten so far out of hand action is needed.

Once again we have kneejerk reaction to a long-standing problem.

Their idea is to pass off this problem to the residents of Elkins to pay for the previous councils’ mistakes and not taking care of it years ago. Why should we be the ones that have to pay for this problem?

If the City Council would take the time to investigate all the solutions available to them I’m sure that a formidable solution could be found through loans or bonds to cover the cost of closing the landfill and having the funds to maintain it for the years necessary to satisfy the agencies overseeing this problem.

The loans could be taken out for a 0 to 1 percent interest either from the state or through local banks.

The bond could be floated with about the same thing and a payoff would be on down the road. The city and county would pay the bonds off at either 0 percent to 1 percent interest to the bond holders. This would leave the citizens of Elkins out of this equation. It seems to me they’re being reactionary to every problem that comes along instead of sitting back and looking at the whole problem, to see which would be the best way to fix it.

This knee-jerk reaction to problems has been the way the city has handled all the problems that come up from time to time. There is no planning for these things and I know there are those out there that would say you can’t plan for everything.

But you should at least have an idea of where you can go to attain the help when these problems arise. This is all part of looking at the whole picture and knowing what assets you are going to need to take care of the problem. This includes everything from water main breaks to road repair to disasters that have a way of hitting us from the blindside, as happened last year.

This kind of governing comes from not having the business leaders of our community seated on the City Council. These are the people you should elect to be the ones that need to make the decision for the city and set up the planning needed to move this city forward. Without this kind of leadership, we have decisions coming out of Council and from the county as we have seen in this problem with the landfill.

Mike McRae

Elkins

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