Forest attended along with Katie Garrity, her sister Mora and several other residents from the affected neighborhood. Forest also notified Todd Crotty (94.3 Great Country), who showed up as the only media presence. The WSOR has moved their planned site for the loading operation about 100yds S of the last proposed site. To do this, they are purchasing property from Blair Dillman and have requested that the city change the zoning on the the purchased property from R2 (Med. Density Res.) to I2 (industrial and manufacturing). The new location seems like a far better site for the wetlands, anyway (.36 acres affected, down from 1.83 under former plans). However, this brings the whole operation even closer to the impacted residential neighborhood.
The WSOR put on their power point about the new site and after that questions were allowed. Ron Leys spoke beautifully of the value of that area, being essentially the doorway to Prairie du Chien, and the value of the natural landscape, the view, and potential revenue from nice houses and future development. He also commented that he was glad to hear that (though as far as he could tell they didn’t need to listen to the city at all) the message from the top in WSOR/Watco was to come and ask the city.
Forest later turned that comment into a question and asked the WSOR representative directly if they were indeed asking the city in good faith and would abide by the decision of the city. The reply was a bumbling from WSOR spokesman Tim Karp of, “we’ll certainly take it into account” and some more empty rhetoric about how this site was better and they like to listen… More good questions were asked by residents and it was brought up by Mora Garrity that the sand silo was about twice the allowable height for even the new proposed zoning.
When she pressed the WSOR rep, he also admitted that though the loading facility would only be used for sand now, they were obligated to load and ship whatever substance came forward including dangerous chemicals and oil. It was asked if the loading would get a lot more intense when the Bridgeport mine was up to capacity and Tim Karp played dumb and said he had no idea and, referring the question to Kyle Pattison (who had lent him his laser pointer for the presentation) said “it’s your business, I just know you come from Iowa”.
Kyle Pattison then talked for about five minutes completely off topic about all the good jobs that this site and the Bridgeport mine create.
In the end, the motion was made to recommend to the city council that the zoning change be made, seconded, and in a tight 3-4 vote, failed! The recommendation from the Plan Commission to the City Council is to deny the zoning change and a full public hearing will be held on the issue at the December 2nd City Council Meeting.