It just keeps smelling worse.

Last week, residents filed a recall motion with the county against Sedro-Woolley Mayor Mike Anderson.

This week, the county accused City Attorney and Supervisor Eron Berg of tampering with evidence in the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) process. He is said to have removed a letter from Leo Jacobs, solid waste foreman for the city, from the city planning department’s file connected with Deluxe Recycling and Disposal.

There is already a public outcry to replace current council members as offices come up for reelection.

At this rate, we’ll have an entirely new council within a few years.

While some residents say there needs to be this type of housecleaning, others argue these are good men just trying to follow the rules.

Any way you slice it, this is causing one of the deepest community rifts in recent history.

Before the recall motion or the tampering accusations, Deluxe Recycling and Disposal owner Larry McCarter shared his vision with the Skagit Valley Herald.

He said that his solid waste and recycling facility will help curb waste from landfills, feed tax dollars to Sedro-Woolley and provide educational opportunities to its residents.

Instead of the smelly and noisy dump envisioned by the more than 190 residents who turned out in protest at the Aug. 13 City Council meeting, McCarter told the Herald it would be a good neighbor to the high school.

He also said he envisions a tree museum surrounding the facility.

McCarter should remember one thing: Sedro-Woolley is a logging town at its roots and many citizens still own chain saws. And many residents still believe trees are made for logging, not museums.

The majority of residents don’t want the solid waste and recycling center in their city, let alone next to the high school. Unlike larger communities, Sedro-Woolley residents’ lives tend to revolve around their schools. When someone talks about trucking garbage down the streets near the city’s high school, they might as well be asking for a miracle rather than support.

I’ve been following the Deluxe fiasco since its inception in 2007. I was at the first Sedro-Woolley City Council meeting in May 2007 when Larry McCarter made his first presentation to a packed house. Thanks to an e-mail alert from Skagit County Prosecuting Attorney Rich Weyrich (also a Sedro-Woolley School Board member), the community center was standing-room only.

McCarter’s original business plan and presentation at that meeting relied heavily on the recycling portion of the show and sort of skimmed over the part where he’d be hauling in garbage and using the facility as a solid waste transfer station. He mentioned it, but most in attendance would probably agree the focus of that presentation made the facility sound like a pretty darn good deal.

Then people started questioning whether or not the facility was actually placing a dump next to the high school.

McCarter urged city officials, business owners and residents to visit his similar facility in Ferndale. The site is in an industrial park setting, with few houses in the immediate vicinity.

I visited the recycling and disposal business and spent an entire day in Ferndale, visiting not only the recycling center, but also neighboring businesses and residences.

Overall, I was impressed by McCarter’s business, but not enough to want a similar operation next to the high school my children will one day attend.

I never could have imagined the problems his proposed business has created in our small community.

When the City Council recently rejected a settlement proposal by Skagit County, they did so under the advice of outside legal counsel. According to Anderson, council members were advised that if they went along with the settlement, Deluxe could sue them and their spouses.

Either they follow the law of the land precisely, ignoring their citizens’ outcries, or risk losing their homes, retirement accounts and in some cases, successful businesses.

While many say this is the worst-case scenario, there were several court cases cited by the outside attorney, Anderson said.

Residents reading this column might imagine themselves taking the high road, putting their own personal risk aside to vote out the bully.

I would imagine that wouldn’t be as easy to do when told you wouldn’t have any type of legislative immunity.

I’ve heard that at least a couple of council members were planning on voting to sign the settlement agreement until they heard their wives also could be sued.

How would Deluxe be able to sue? Well, it’s simple yet complex.

Because there is a specific zoning process the city has to follow, if it deviates or discriminates against an entity such as Deluxe, the elected officials making that decision can be sued.

When an applicant wants to build a facility, as long as the property it wants to build on is zoned to allow its specific purposes and the applicant goes through the planning department to acquire the proper permits, there’s not much residents or city councils can do after the fact.

During the SEPA process, the city can either require a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) or set specific requirements in a mitigated-determination of non-significance (MDNS). In Deluxe’s case, the city set 21 specific guidelines to offset everything from noise to appearance.

Simply put, this is what city officials thought it would take to make Deluxe’s imminent arrival on our doorsteps as painless for us as possible.

The county’s accusations of wrong-doing by the city attorney/supervisor could throw another wrench into Deluxe’s arrival. If the letter from the solid waste supervisor wasn’t allowed, that means SEPA procedures were violated and the entire permitting process could have to start over.

During the original process, citizens had the chance to appeal the MDNS. This is what local resident Annie Janicki decided to do. This appeal has allowed residents to rally support against Deluxe, but still doesn’t necessarily mean the solid waste and recycling facility’s immediate departure from the city.

If Janicki wins her appeal, it basically would mean that the city would need to require a full EIS from Deluxe. This outcome could either place more or less restrictions on the property than the city did.

City officials say at least through the MDNS process, they were able to place 21 restrictions and requirements on the property before Deluxe would be able to operate. And these requirements are just the city’s. Deluxe would still need to acquire proper permits through the county to run a solid waste transfer facility — something we know the county will fight because it has an agreement with all of the cities for them to use its own solid waste transfer facility through 2013.

If Deluxe operates within the city limits of Sedro-Woolley, the city would receive revenues through taxes while the county would be in a position of losing money.

Although the county’s recent settlement offer looked to many residents like an easy way out, it was not as simple as that.

Basically, the county was unable to protect the city if Deluxe did indeed bring a lawsuit.

By voting against accepting the county’s settlement proposal, the City Council did the only thing that would keep the city and themselves safe from spending even more money defending potential worst-case scenario lawsuits.

Does this make the decision the one any of us wanted: no.

There are no easy solutions to this problem, except Deluxe owner Larry McCarter having a sudden epiphany that Sedro-Woolley residents are a stubborn lot who will never support his facility — even with a tree museum.



Richardson is the editor of the Courier-Times. She can be reached at 360-855-1641 or via e-mail at .