You're gonna love this. I especially like the line that says
corporations in violation of the prohibition shall not have legal status
as "persons". Unfortunately, the US Constitution and the US Supreme
Court still trump a City Ordinance, but it would give the lawyers
something to do. See attachment.
JBK
>>> <Duane330(a)aol.com> 6/2/2011 11:53 PM >>>
The Concerned Citizens for Safe Air and Water were formed by Kathy
Cash,
Sandra Fallon, Alice Meehan, Ann Payne, Catherine Tall out of concern
for
the Marcellus shale drilling permits at the Morgantown Industrial
Park. They
organized a large meeting at the Morgantown High School on Friday
night,
May 20th. The attendees divided up into 5 committees – one of which
was the
legal committee chaired by Kitty Lozier and Duane Nichols. I was
unable
to attend the meeting at MHS.
The legal committee was interested in finding out how the cities of
Pittsburgh, Buffalo and other locations had adopted their bans against
shale gas
extraction. They learned that the technical assistance had been
provided to
each of these city councils by the Community Environmental Legal
Defense
Fund. The program director responsible for the ban ordinances was Ben
Price.
Price was familiar with the Wellsburg ordinance and has been working
with
the Pocahontas County citizens in WV as well.
Kitty and Duane were able to set up a conference call with Ben Price
and
with the some of the rest of the committee members at 2 p.m. on
Thursday,
May 26. The legal committee asked Jenny Selin and me to join them
because of
our council activity in support of the resolutions that I drafted
before
the previous City Council Meeting on May 17. During the first
conference call
Price offered to draft an ordinance and to come to Morgantown to speak
in
its support. The committee members on the call were pleased with his
offer.
Nichols offered to coordinate the arrangements.
A second call was set up for May 27 at 4 p.m. in which I was unable to
participate. Late Thursday afternoon I did, however, call the City
Manager and
asked him to place the consideration of an ordinance “protecting
public
health, public safety and public welfare” on the agenda for the May
31
Committee Of The Whole Meeting – even though at that time (because
Chambersburg
services being disabled by the violent storm earlier Thursday), we had
not
yet received a copy of the draft.
The first draft became available for the 4 p.m. Friday call. I
received my
draft about 8 p.m. that evening when I returned home (May 27). On
Saturday
a.m. I made several calls (which were difficult to complete due to the
holiday weekend), and then called Price back on Monday (May 30) noon
with some
recommended changes and corrections that had been suggested by
different
persons. I received a copy of the revised draft that would be presented
at
the meeting by Councilor Selin late Monday evening.
All of this push was deemed necessary because of the state of the
drilling
plans and preparation on the drill site across the Mon river. Waiting
a
month until the June COW made no sense at all to anyone on the
committee.
I was unable to contact Mayor Byrne throughout the weekend and finally
after consultations with Councilor Selin did sent out the copy of the
proposed
ordinance to the full Council at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning. I did
not
consult with the City Manager before sending out the material to the
Council. But copies of the email and the ordinance were sent to
Terrance Moore and
Jeff Mikorski simultaneously with the 9 a.m. Council mailing.
The names of the persons on the original conference call on May 26
were as
follows:
Kitty Lozier, League of Women Voters
Jenny Selin, City Council Member
Don Spencer, City Council Member and Deputy Mayor until June 30
Linda Shuster, Mon Valley Clean Air Coalition
Robert Bastress, Professor, WVU College of Law
Evan Hansen, Environmental Consultant, Downstream Technologies
Duane Nichols, Monongahela Area Watersheds Compact
Members of the legal committee of the Concerned Citizens for Safe Air
and
Water hosted Price and paid for his travel and lodging from
Chambersburg,
PA.
Don Spencer, Morgantown City Council
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
THE DRAFT ORDINANCE, ATTACHED, WAS INTRODUCED TO CITY COUNCIL IN THE
"COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE" THIS PAST TUESDAY. AFTER EXTENDED
DISCUSSION
IT WAS "FORWARDED TO RESEARCH" RATHER THAN BEING "FORWARDED TO THE
AGENDA FOR THE UPCOMING COUNCIL MEETING ON JUNE 7TH.
THREE OTHER RESOLUTIONS HAVING TO DO WITH THE MARCELLUS DRILLING
WERE "FORWARDED TO THE AGENDA" FOR THE JUNE 7TH MEETING, ONE OF WHICH
WAS A BAN ON DRILLING WITHIN THE CITY LIMITS AND EXTENDING OUT ONE
MILE
PATTERNED AFTER THE WELLSBURG (wv) BAN ON SUCH DRILLING.
Mayor Bill Byrne says that the CELDF ordinance (attached) has a very
weak
legal foundation,
and is no consistent with State law. Ben Price of the CELDF says
that
the Wellsburg ban has
a weak foundation and can be easily overturned in the future. We
shall
see if anything gets done
in future City Council meetings.
