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[teagle7]

Lafayette to burn city property on June 22, 2008 between the hours of 8am and 5pm. If
you live within miles of downtown Lafayette, make sure to keep your windows tight.
Don’t do laundry, and come a few days, don’t you dare water your lawn.
Lafayette City Administrator Diane Rinks and Fire Chief Terry Lucich have deemed the
McMinnville Fire Training Tower inadequate for Lafayette’s Fire Department Training
needs.
Against citizen’s protests (and local ordinances), Diane Rinks and Terry Lucich will be
destroying city property. They are moving forward with a ‘Burn to Learn’ of viable city
resources. Diane has stated on numerous occasions this particular building contains a
non-toxic mold. Citizen’s have asked for the opportunity to volunteer and do a quality
deconstruction.
But, quality deconstruction takes time. And is citizen friendly and sustainable. Diane
Rinks has no patience for any of these things. Even our own city burning guidelines state
‘the days of burning trash, tires, plastic, petroleum products, asphalt, industrial waste or
anything that creates dense smoke or noxious odors are over and gone’.
To bolster the effort, Diane calls upon the town mayor, Don Leard for support of the
project. Don owns the property next door to the building and is looking forward to the
use of the additional parking spaces for his rental units and the avoidance of roofing
shingles on his property. Although they get lost in his tall grass, he feels the building
needs to go. On a side note, the council will be looking at acquiring neighboring property
to the burn site to expand the city hall footprint. Would this be the same property the
mayor owns? Only he and Diane know for sure. After the burn, the city council has
authorized $100,000.00 to pave the square to put in parking (until the new city hall is
built). It should also be noted that not one of the people involved in this decision (the
administrator, the fire chief or the mayor, live in Lafayette).
In Lafayette, we are hard pressed for decent drinking water. And come summer, we have
no water pressure to speak of. But, apparently, we will not have the need for rationing
this year. Because the fire department has thousands of gallons at their disposal for this
project. This project doesn’t even calculate the cost to groundwater pollution.
I support educating our fire personnel. Not 10 miles down the road is a beautiful training
facility for just such a project. Does it lose something not seeing the actual destruction? If
so, then our police forces should be allowed to let convicted criminals escape so they may
practice their weapon firing accuracy. This is why simulation facilities exist. Technology
makes actual situations no longer necessary.
Greensburg, Kansas is providing an example of how to behave as a city who wants to
grow and be sustainable. Lafayette, Oregon is at the other end of the spectrum. Some day,
Lafayette, too, will be held as an example – of how to extinguish a town.
Bring a mask and join me for an old fashioned protest.

Written by Angela my wife

http://www.lafayetteoregon.info