Thursday, April 12, 2007
BIDDEFORD - A citizens group that opposes a contract between the city and the Maine Energy Recovery Company will set the agenda at a special meeting of the Biddeford City Council at 7 p.m. Friday.
The Working Alliance for Biddeford's future held a petition drive to force the City Council to hold the meeting, at which councilors will hear alternatives to sending the city's trash to MERC. Under a rarely used clause in the Biddeford city charter, residents may schedule a council meeting by collecting 100 signatures from voters.
A week after the council's 5-4 decision on April 2 to sign a five-year contract with the Maine Energy Recovery Company, members of the Working Alliance went door to door and collected 130 signatures. The group has invited the director of the ecomaine incinerator in Portland to speak to councilors about that facility's bid to dispose of Biddeford's trash.
Some members of the citizens group said they hoped the meeting could help persuade councilors to reconsider their decision before the council's second, and final, vote on the MERC contract, scheduled for Tuesday night.
Working Alliance member David Versel said he thought the special meeting would at least force the council to give fair consideration to ecomaine's proposal. That facility and MERC were the only ones to submit bids in response to the council's request for proposals.
Though MERC was the low bidder, members of the Working Alliance, who maintain that the downtown incinerator hampers Biddeford's economic development, said the council never gave ecomaine's offer serious consideration.
"This sends a message to the public that the City Council is going to have to listen to all sides before making a decision about the waste handling agreement," Versel said.
City Council Chairman Ken Farley, who participated in almost three years of negotiations to draw up the MERC contract and voted to adopt it last week, said the council examined the ecomaine alternative long before it issued a request for proposals. Farley said he believes there is little an ecomaine representative could tell councilors that they don't already know.
"We've fully understood what ecomaine has to offer for over a year," he said.
Farley said he believes there is a fundamental difference of opinion between supporters and opponents of the contract with MERC. He said it is in the city's best interest to sign the MERC contract, for financial reasons and because it resolves ongoing legal issues between the city and MERC and provides tools to regulate the incinerator.
Working Alliance members argue otherwise. They point to 20 years of conflict over odor and other complaints to show the city has been unable to adequately regulate MERC while maintaining a business relationship.
Hundreds of supporters of the group's position have packed council meetings through months of contract negotiations.
Only a smattering of residents have spoken in favor of the MERC contract, though Biddeford Mayor Wallace Nutting said numerous residents have contacted him privately to express support. At the last council meeting, Nutting said he believes that a "silent majority" of residents agrees with the council's position.
Working Alliance member Kyle Noble said it took less than a day for the group to collect the signatures to hold the special meeting. He said that show of support and the turnout at recent council meetings should dispel the idea that public opinion favors a contract with MERC.
"Our experience is completely the opposite," he said.
Nutting will chair the meeting on Friday, which he said would be similar to a public hearing. Noble said the last time Biddeford residents called a City Council meeting by petition was 17 years ago, during a previous round of MERC contract talks.
Staff Writer Seth Harkness can be contacted at 282-8225 or at: sharkness@pressherald.com
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