Opposition may bury Council’s landfill resolution

With support for a landfill on the city’s Webberville tract waning, the Council will likely postpone a resolution on this week’s agenda directing city staff to complete environmental studies for the project.

 

Council Members Jennifer Kim and Lee Leffingwell said Monday that Mayor Pro Tem Betty Dunkerley plans to withdraw the resolution stating the council’s intent to move forward with the landfill and other industrial projects on the tract.

 

Leffingwell is a co-sponsor and Kim has now joined Council Members Sheryl Cole and Mike Martinez in opposing placing a landfill at the East Travis County site.  Kim told In Fact Daily that she believes there would be a fourth no vote on the landfill location also, presumably Council Member Brewster McCracken.

 

Dunkerley’s aide Julian Garza confirmed that his boss intends to take the item off the agenda for this week.

 

Kim said “the racial and ethnic overtones of this whole discussion” about putting landfills and other undesirable businesses in poor minority communities was “very troubling.”

 

State Rep. Dawnna Dukes and Travis County Commissioner Ron Davis – both of whom represent the Webberville area – plan a news conference this morning to discuss their opposition to the proposed landfill and a wastewater facility on the tract. Webberville Mayor Hector Gonzales and others are expected to join them to talk about environmental concerns and the inequities of placing such facilities in eastern Travis County.

 

Both Dukes and Davis have strongly criticized the Council for moving ahead with the landfill, while rejecting the proposal to release other area land from the city’s extra-territorial jurisdiction for Villa Muse Studios, partially out of concern for the environment.