Dairy Factory Fight is Heating Up!

March 4, 2006
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Dear Friends,

If you believe St. Jo. County should regulate these monster factory farms, please attend the Council Committee meeting scheduled for Monday (Mar. 6) at 4:30 (fourth floor). Also, please call your Councilman (see list below) or FAX a letter to all of them asking for a moratorium on factory farms and time to study how the County should regulate them.

Thanks very much.
Laura Fuderer

Dairy Factory Fight is Heating Up! A change of strategy is in order!!!

Rafael Morton is starting to see that this might be a big issue, and that we're not going to go away quietly. He's told the council secretary to reserve the big council room for this issue at 4:30pm on Monday. But whether we get to use it or not will be up to him, at the last minute, and will depend on how many people show up. For now we're still scheduled in the small 36-person conference room. Morton is adamant about no more than 4 or 5 speakers, 10 minutes each, which is fine. We have those individuals lined up from among the immediate neighbors of the proposed dairy.

But we need people to come out in droves to show support.

So, once again, we need to pack the house!

It's going to be tough getting numbers at 4:30 pm on a Monday afternoon, but we've got to try. It is a public meeting, so they shouldn't be able to keep anyone out.

But we're hearing rumors that Mr. Schafer, who didn't want any of us in the room last time, is planning on bringing a large crowd of his own to fill the small room and keep most of us out. So we need to have enough numbers to match his and force the meeting into the big room.

Also, because it's not a formal meeting, only those councilmen who feel the issue is worth their time will come. So call them and make it worth their time. (The councilmen's numbers are at the bottom of this e-mail.)

Please, call everyone you know who is interested in this issue and beg them to come!

If they came to Lakeville, call them.

If they came to the council meeting last Tuesday, call them.

If they haven't come to any of these meetings yet, but know about the issue, call them.

For those of you not in the know, there was a public meeting last Tuesday at which proponents of the dairy factory were invited to present their side of the issue to the county council. We were told very definitely that our side could not speak because it was a committee meeting, and we were not officially on the agenda. We kept very quiet, only to find out later that the official committee meeting had been closed just before bringing up the dairy presentation, and the floor was indeed open for anyone to speak!

In addition, they put the meeting in a very small room. Then went around posting fire code signs all over the place limiting the number of people in the room to 36. This had never been done before. To top it off, they posted a sheriff's deputy at the door to keep order and limit the number of people who could get in the room. They turned a lot of our supporters away at the door! The sheriff's deputy even suggested that they move the meeting to the big room and they refused.

They are trying to keep us quiet, but we won't let them. Schrock is telling people he's moving this operation over to Elkhart County. But an Indianapolis surveyor was on the site yesterday, and they are doing soil borings today. They are pushing as fast as they can to get this IDEM permit through before we can get the county to react.

So please help us, and come to this meeting:

* 4:30 pm Monday, March 6th
* 4th floor - County-City Bldg., downtown So. Bend

St. Joseph County Council

• 227 W. Jefferson Blvd., County-City Bldg., 4th Floor
• South Bend, IN 46601
• Phone: 574.235.9658;

St. Joseph County Council Members

• Randall Przybysz (D) - Dist. A
  Phone: 574. 282.1000
• Andrew Kostielney (R) - Dist. B
  Phone: 574.272.0454
• Dale Devon (R) - Dist. C
  Phone: 574.271.0686
• Rafael Morton (D) - Dist. D
  Phone: 574.232.7190
• Michael J. Kruk (D) - Dist. E
  Phone: 574.288.7504
• Dennis Schafer (R) - Dist. F
  Phone: 574.784.8285
• Mark Catanzarite (D) - Dist. G
  Phone: 574.232.9112
• Joseph Baldoni (D) - Dist. H
  Phone 574.232.2376
• Mark Root (R) - Dist. I
  Phone: 574.674.9125

St. Joseph County Commission Office

St. Joseph County Commissioners

• District 1 Commissioner Mark Dobson (Member)
• District 2 Commissioner Steve Ross (Vice-President)
• District 3 Commissioner Cynthia A. Bodle (President)

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St. Joe Valley Greens, South Bend, IN