One sorry fact about being wealthy in America is that you seldom get to have a garbage dump in the middle of your neighborhood. It's a sad but true fact that you just can't hardly find a ritzy upscale area these days with easy access to a dump.
What is a rich person to do?
I'll tell y'a what. I bet the folks living in the poorer section of Hallandale Beach in Broward County, Florida would be more than happy to let wealthy citizens have theirs...and at no extra cost.
Even those these giving citizens are predominately black, I bet they'd let some white folks have the dump that's proposed for their area of town. That's just the kind of folks they are.
And Even though City Manager Mike Good told the folks at a recent meeting to discuss the dump (which was held on the other side of town) how swell the new dump will be, I just know they would still willing to share the bounty.
I'm sure some nearby wealthy white neighborhood would jump up and accept the offer. I mean why let black folks have all the fun of rats and smelly air. It's about a time that the upper classes got a share of the action. After all they create most of the garbage.
The following is from the Miami Herald.
Hallandale 'garbage dump' plan protested
Upset that the city plans to install a ''garbage dump'' in the predominantly black part of town, Hallandale Beach residents on Monday asked the City Commission to consider another site.
They're concerned that the project would attract rats and birds, and that it would smell like garbage.
But City Manager Mike Good said the proposed ''transfer storage facility'' won't be as bad as residents think, and could save the city $1.2 million per year compared to the current system of trucking the city's garbage to a facility 30 miles away.
Residents were so unconvinced by Good's assurances that at one point they laughed at him.
''If there are too many problems, the facility would shut down,'' Good said, drawing the laughs. One man called out, ``Everything you said is a lie!`'
About 100 residents came to the meeting, which was held in a community center on the opposite side of town from their neighborhood.
The northwest neighborhood hasn't had a City Commission representative since the 1970s, but city commissioners have voted down plans to create a district system to make that happen.
On Monday, the Rev. Josh Brown of the Hallandale Church of God called the situation ``taxation without representation.''
Other residents reproached the city for instances in which they say the needs of the neighborhood have been neglected.
''There's no way to pretty it up. It stinks,'' neighborhood resident Denise Cobb, 40, told commissioners. ``It's nasty, will cause our community cancer and asthma. Why didn't you put it by your house?''
After Cobb spoke, residents erupted in cheers.
The city says trash would be stored at the station for no more than 12 hours, then trucked to a landfill. To ease residents' concerns, commissioners have told them the trash would not be left there overnight.
The city already has purchased the site at 310 Ansin Blvd. for $2.9 million.
''We don't have a need for this,'' said Herscha Roberts, 66, who has lived in northwest Hallandale Beach most of her life.
``They talk about saving money. How about saving lives?''
After Roberts said ''We don't need this,'' residents in the crowd chanted ``We don't need it! We don't need it!''
Throughout the meeting, commissioners sat silently among the crowd.
Before the facility is built, the city would have to file an application with the Broward County Environmental Protection Department.
Jeffrey Halsey, a division director for that department, told residents his office inspects such facilities every four months.
Waste Management Inc. has agreed to build the million-dollar facility.
In exchange, the city would sign a long-term contract with the company to operate the facility and haul the trash to a landfill each day.
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