Not If, But How?

Frisco Unleaded's meet and greet turned into an impromptu town hall with Mayor Maso, at least two council members and City Manager George Purefoy showing up and fielding questions from a sometimes skeptical, sometimes supportive crowd of 50 or so residents who turned out to get an update on the fight over the Exide lead smelter.

The official topic was the city's start and stop amortization efforts that began with a January vote by the Council to send the matter to the city's Board of Adjustment, then seemingly stalled, and then got jump-started by Frisco Unleaded's massive mailing to residents around Earth Day that prompted the city to announce a June 18th public hearing date. Local municipal attorney Jim Schnurr gave a presentation on the amortization process and how citizens should prepare for the June hearing. He also mapped out a strategy to plug any holes in the city's amortization case against Exide between now and June.

But the discussion turned to other ways to get Exide out when Council Members Pat Fallon and Bob Allen spoke about the city's position. Although circumspect, from the language the councilmen were using, it seems the City is indeed exploring an aggressive "buy-out" of the lead smelter using a combination of bond money and economic development funding that would result in Exide ceasing operations within the next 12-24 months. That would probably be sooner than an amortization proceeding could close the smelter because of the length of time to hear appeals. But it would also cost more. With the rumor that the state and EPA have found a lot more hazardous wastes illegally buried at Exide, the expense of clean-up are still unknown but they're not going down. Purefoy did say that residents should see something happen within the next 60-90 days. The message residents sent the council on Monday night was that it was past due for a definitive resolution to get Exide out, and that they want all means of doing that aggressively pursued.

If you're a Frisco resident, it's very important to keep the pressure on and show up on June 18th at the Board of Adjustment hearing and testify why you believe Exide's operations are a public nuisance to your health and/or property. This time last year the City of Frisco was negotiating with Exide over the conditions under which it would remain open. Now, it's haggling with citizens over which mechanisms to use to close it. That's progress and that's happened because of a determined group of people in Frisco Unleaded who haven't taken no for an answer. Stay tuned.