Just for the record, so to speak...no pun
intended!
~Monica
Her Majesty
(Lennon/McCartney)
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl,
but she doesn't have a lot to
say
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl
but she changes from day to day.
I
want to tell her that I love her a lot
But I gotta get a bellyful of
wine
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl
Someday I'm going to make her mine,
oh yeah,
someday I'm going to make her mine.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2004 10:01
AM
Subject: Re: E-M:/ Her Majesty...
Dear Mark Dougher and other
EM-ers:
First of all, I always thought it was "I imagine she's a
pretty nice girl..." I sing it to my cat everyday and also to one I
borrow from the neighbor, who actually does have a lot to say.
Secondly, if you are waiting for the governor to respond, you might
be waiting like a starlet in a Hollywood diner.
If you want the Lady's
attention, you must squawk. If there is anything that politicians
hate, it is bad PR. If even a small number who attended the meeting
wrote a letter to the editors of Michigan papers, you can bet someone from
her administration would respond.
It need not be lengthy or even
eloquent. It should say, "We do not want a few jobs 'at any cost.'
We do expect the Granholm administration to act ethically and with
integrity, and it appears that Lydia Murray's actions counter
that."
What Mark wrote below is great and I hope people will excerpt
his information to get the word out. I will be looking forward to hearing
what happens tonight, and I'll prepare my own letter to send to papers in
southeast lower Michigan.
Good luck to you.
Sherry
Hayden
From a concerned
citizen regarding a matter of public policy:
On February 19, 2004 there was a Public Hearing
before the City of Manistee Planning Commission concerning the proposed
Northern Lights Project - a 425 megawatt coal-fired electrical generating
plant that the Tondu Corporation of Houston, Texas seeks to build in our
town of 6,000 people at the mouth of the Manistee River and between
the shores of Lake Michigan and the Manistee National Forest. Before this
project can proceed, the Tondu Corporation must obtain a Special Use Permit
from the City of Manistee. If he obtains this permit, then the
Tondu Corporation must obtain several permits from the MDEQ.
There were over 500 people who attended the Public
Hearing, and there were so many people who signed up to speak that the
Public Hearing was extended to this Thursday, February 26th at 7:00
pm in the Manistee Middle School Gymnasium. Some of the people who
spoke out against the Northern Lights Project included representatives from:
·
Manistee County Democratic
Party
·
Michigan Environmental
Council
·
Lake Michigan Federation
·
Traverse Group of the
Sierra Club
·
Michigan United
Conservation Clubs Regional Association encompassing 26 conservation
clubs that enacted a unanimous resolution opposing the project
·
Michigan Chapter of the
American Lung Association
·
Northern Michigan
Environmental Action Council
·
Sweetwater Alliance
·
Tip of the Mitt Watershed
Council
·
Little River Band of
Ottawa Indians Tribal government
·
Grand Traverse Band of
Ottawa and Chippewa Indians Tribal government
·
Manistee Citizens for
Responsible Development
And
the list grows.
During the three
hour public hearing, there were only three people who spoke in favor of the
proposed coal plant: Joe Tondu, the owner/developer; Tom Kubanek,
Director of the Manistee Industrial Development Corporation; and Lydia
Murray, Account Manager for the Michigan Economic Development
Corporation and representative for the Michigan Department of Labor and
Economic Growth.
During Lydia
Murrays remarks, she cited that she was specifically asked by
David Hollister and the Granholm Administration to attend this
public hearing and speak in favor of the project.
It appears that someone in the Granholm
Administration does not give much credence to the seriousness of the action
that took place at this public hearing. If the Governor was not aware that a
spokesperson, Lydia Murray, was doing what she did, then the Governor needs
to say something now. It seems inconceivable that a governor would
weigh in on a local issue at this point. It may actually be without
precedent. The region is quite upset, to put it mildly. If the
Governors advisors are not reading the newspapers up and down this
coast and the Traverse magazine, they need to be doing so. I can tell
you that the opposition to this plant has now been contacted by the UPI, AP
and CNN.
Regionally there are talks of
organizing bus trips to Lansing to picket the governors office.
The interference in local politics is
newsworthy enough, but when you analyze the speech of Lydia Murray it has
sentence structure and vocabulary, facts and data that appear to be lifted
right out of Tondu Corporation public statements. The people in this area in
opposition to this plant are bright, research oriented Democrats who are not
going to let this one alone. And, Republicans have now joined the
effort, which is going to force the hand of their representatives in this
area. This situation is even more newsworthy because the developer of
the project, Joe Tondu, who now has presumably been supported by the
Governors office, sits on the Governors advisory panel on mercury
emission controls.
More newsworthy is
that the Governor has said she wants to move to zero mercury emissions by
2020, yet the proposed plant is to be built on Manistee Lake, a lake
the U.S. EPA has designated an impaired lake because of Mercury
contamination and PCBs. The MDEQ knows this and therefore I presume the
Governor does also. This is a real ethical issue for democrats in this
region of the State. Manistee Lake also flows into Lake Michigan, a priority
for clean-up according to the State of the State address and recent
executive order about no dumping of harbor dredge material into Lake
Michigan.
There are serious questions
being asked around here. Questions include:
·
When did the Governors
office and Hollisters office know of this proposal?
·
How can the Governor
sacrifice the people of northwest Michigan for a corporation from Houston,
Texas?
·
Why didnt the Governor
send a representative to talk with the people of before making a public
statement in support of the Tondu Corporation?
·
Why didnt the Governor
take more seriously the resolution of opposition from the Manistee
Democratic Party?
·
Have there been any
campaign contributions from a PAC that is supported by the Tondu
Corporation, its principals or family members?
·
Have there been any direct
campaign contributions from the Tondu Corporation, their principals or
family members?
·
Was this project discussed
in the Governors advisory committee on mercury emissions?
This issue is not going to go away.
Yesterday, February
22, 2004 there was an editorial in the Detroit Free Press that is going to
play into this situation in Manistee.
The headline is: Mercury: Tighter Rules Can and
Should Go Further. The article goes on to discuss EPA scientists
findings that probably one in six women of child-bearing age have enough
mercury in their systems to affect the offspring rather than previous
estimates of one in twelve. It goes on to urge the EPA to toughen its
rules based on its own research. Once again it states the obvious:
The biggest remaining output of mercury comes from coal-burning power
plants.
The Governor is rapidly
slipping into heavy scrutiny unless a statement is forthcoming. This
reminds me of the last song by the Beatles on the Abbey Road album:
Her Majestys a pretty nice girl
but she doesnt have a lot to say,
Her Majestys a
pretty nice girl but she changes from day to day
Mark Dougher
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