The results from yesterday's city council elections are:

2-year term: John Huff

4-year term: Richie Aoki, Mark Bingham, David Lee

Well, I hesitate to say anything for fear I'll jinx it, but as of now the biodiesel plant looks like a no-go. The guy didn't get his funding, which is why the lot is still for sale. Hooray!

In other news, today is Election Day, so be sure to go down to the town offices and vote. Make your voice heard!

Also, the playground equipment for East Park (the grassy patch east of the cemetery) has arrived, and the city needs volunteers to help set it up. We'll be assembling it on Monday, November 14th at 9:00 in the morning. The first three or four hours are the most critical, but Mayor Forsgren said they'd appreciate any help at any time. I'll be calling around for volunteers, but if you're interested and don't hear from me feel free to come by on Monday morning.

I forgot to mention--if anyone is interested in running for city council, there are four positions opening this fall; three four-year terms and on two-year term. You have to register before tomorrow at five, but the city office is usually only open until noon.

Last night at the city council meeting we asked some questions and voiced some of our concerns. They assured us that they are by no means done with this discussion, and that there are a number of requirements Jeff (biodiesel guy) will have to meet to get his building permit. They also said that they are requiring him to have the approval of a safety engineer.

They pulled out the same old claptrap about the internet research they've done about the biodiesel process (a different process from the one being used here), by which they mean a Youtube video that shows high school students making it in their classroom. A Youtube video. Awesome. To my expression of irritation that he's going to be using a crap-ton of fossil fuel to ship the grease here they countered with "No, he's using natural gas." So, I guess natural gas is no longer a fossil fuel? Aarrgh! This is not doing anything about creating a renewable, sustainable energy source, so why do people act like that's what we're doing, like we're saving pandas or something? They cited a letter from the mayor of Isanti (where the other plant is located--a plant that Biodiesel Jeff has never visited, by the way), who extols the virtues of the plant; the jobs it has brought and the total lack of smell, but unfortunately the mayor doesn't live by the plant, and everyone we talked to who works nearby (because they didn't want to put it by houses, can you imagine?) says it smells, and some of them say it smells all the time. They think the smell might be coming from the storage tanks on the property (this plant won't have storage tanks), but nobody knows for sure, including Biodiesel Jeff. Great. Very comforting.

So that's where we are. I think the city council will do what they think is truly in the best interests of the community, though I disagree with their vision for the community. I thought it was interesting that they were patting themselves on the back so hard last night about the cities who envy our water system, and how we're going to be out of debt really soon. Wait . . . I thought Honeyville was a "community of need?" I thought we were so poor we couldn't pay our water bill and we can't buy a new snowplow? I thought we needed money so badly we couldn't afford to tell this guy no? I guess I was confused.

It will most likely be a while before anything happens, because the permit process is lengthy and difficult. And who knows? Maybe his investors will back out. Rich people usually like to make sure they're investing their money wisely. We can always hope the project will crater before he builds. But if he does, and then he goes out of business, maybe we can talk Steve Flint into moving his mini truck business into the building. That would be cool, and the best part of all is--no smell!

Okay, here's what I know. The biodiesel guy went radio silent for about a month and a half, and nobody could reach him. Phone calls, email, he wasn't responding to anything. The city couldn't reach him, Hansen Engineering (the ones who are doing his building) couldn't reach him . . . nothing. This made me very hopeful, and I thought if we just sat back and kept quiet about it maybe the city would decide on its own that the guy is a flake, and that his refusal to respond to them is a clear indicator of future problems. But I talked to the mayor on Sunday, and he says he got an email from the guy last week, and the guy told him that the financing and the building and everything are moving forward.

I don't know about that. I wonder if maybe his investors have looked at his plan, the plan to bring grease here from China, burning fossil fuels all the way--so much for his claim that he's helping the environment--and have realized that it can't be profitable. Gas is not going to get cheaper, people. How can he afford to do this? Long-term, I don't see a way it can work. So IF his investors haven't already bailed on him, and IF they give him enough money to build his plant, he's still going to go out of business at some point, leaving us with an eyesore in the center of town.

Even if things go the way the city council thinks they will, our town will see so little actual money from this that it will make no difference.

I wonder if what's going on is the biodiesel guy is scrambling to keep his investors from bailing, and he's telling the mayor that everything is just hunky-dory, and the mayor in turn is telling me that everything's fine, but what's really happening is it's all about to fall to pieces.

Whatever. I'm going to the city council meeting tomorrow night, and maybe they'll address some of my concerns, like: What are we going to do when the plant smells bad and we can't get that guy to answer his phone? What are we going to do when he runs out of money and skips town?

sign the petition

Okay, the petition is up at Lainie's now. Everybody please go sign it!

There are 926 registered voters in Honeyville. The last time a petition was circulated (about the water rate hike) they had 200 signatures. I think we're going to need a lot more than 200 signatures.

The county attorney says we can't overturn the city council's decision, but if we are able to show that the biodiesel plant will be a detriment to the community we can hopefully keep it from getting approved and built.

The next city council meeting with a public comment period is July 13th. Let's aim to have 400 signatures by then, and bring your concerns. Make sure you address this specific processing method, or they'll say, "Well, this process is different," and blow us off. Some concerns we definitely need to bring up are:
1. noise pollution
2. light pollution
3. odor pollution
4. lower property values
5. long-term financial viability of his project
6. safety concerns

Anybody who is willing to go around and knock on doors to get signatures, let me know in the comments. We'll start next week.

we can still do something

Honeyville residents: are you still mad about the rezoning? Do you want to sign a petition to keep the biodiesel plant from coming here, or possibly overturn the rezoning decision? I sure do. Starting next week we'll have a petition up at Lainie's, and we'll canvass the town as well.

Let's stop this ridiculous sellout of Honeyville's character. Let's celebrate our centennial by saving our town from being turned into an industrial park.

The deadline to be on the agenda to speak at the city council meeting is this Tuesday. Go sign up if you want to have a say. The meeting is June 22nd, I believe, but I'll make sure and post it.

STILL FURIOUS

I'm still pretty angry about the fact that the center of town is now zoned as light industrial. Still angry that somebody wants to put a biodiesel plant there. Still angry that our city council is welcoming him in with open arms. Still angry that it's going to ruin our property values and turn our town into a reeking eyesore.

This guy, the potential owner/operator of the biodiesel plant, has never even been to the plant in Michigan. Did you know that? He has never performed the process or seen it done. He says he has "no idea" where the smell is coming from at the Michigan plant. I find that pretty alarming. If he knows that little about the process, not even enough to know where smell might be coming from, how in the world is he going to do something about it when our town starts stinking?

And did you know that the used grease he's processing into fuel--the stuff that's going to make us smell like stale fast food if we're lucky--is coming here from China? What kind of a business plan is that? A stupid one, frankly, and one that is not economically viable in the long term. How long does he think that he's going to be able to afford the gas (petroleum gas, mind you, which last time I checked is not getting cheaper) that is required to transport used fast food oil from China to Utah?

He says if he goes bankrupt he'll pay to have the building torn down. Really? With what money, I wonder, since he'll have gone bankrupt? BANKRUPT MEANS NO MONEY. So when (and I do mean when) he can't afford to stay in business, he'll skip town and leave us with a giant building that will do what all abandoned buildings do and become a vermin-infested pile of garbage. Right in the center of town! That is just great. I can't wait.

Let's remember that he is only going to bring us $15,000 a year, which is not even enough to pay a dog catcher. For crying out loud, how stupid is that?

So let's stop it. Let's sign a petition and make noise at the meeting and do whatever we need to to get it taken care of.

Let's take back our town.

We had a long talk with one of the city councilmen this weekend, and according to him, the community is overwhelmingly in favor of this decision, even counting all the people who showed up the other night to protest it. He says he agonized about it for five months, that he got many, many calls from people saying that if it will bring jobs to the town they want the biodiesel plant, and finally came to the conclusion that he would approve the rezone, even if it were happening next to his house. I don't think I believe that, but I do believe that it was a difficult decision for him. Our town, according to him, is desperately in need of money. So maybe this is the only way they could see of making ends meet. This is why they sold us so cheaply.

I hope Honeyville gets everything it was promised.

Remember! The meeting is tonight! We have to turn out in large numbers and help the City Council to understand just how unpopular this rezoning idea is. They're counting on only a handful of homeowners being upset, so we have to show them that NOBODY WANTS THIS.

7:00 tonight at City Hall.

If you can't come to the meeting, please call the members of the City Council and tell them your concerns. Here is a link to the page on the city website where you can find all their names and telephone numbers: Honeyville City Administration

Very few people I've spoken to have known about the rezoning, and the ones that did thought it was out in the middle of nowhere somewhere. When I tell them it's across the street from the park they all say, "What?!" By law the city only has to inform the people directly adjacent to the property in question, so they didn't tell very many people at all. It it weren't for Lainie, who hears everything, we still wouldn't know about it.

If this is such a great idea for our town, why didn't they tell us more about it, especially when it has the potential to drastically alter our quality of life? It seems sneaky and I feel like we're being railroaded,. It's disingenuous to complain about the apathy of Honeyville citizens when they keep us in the dark like this.

The thing we need to do is stop the city from rezoning the property to light industrial. Because even if the biodiesel plant doesn't work out, something else will. Hey, maybe a dog food factory! Wouldn't that be great? Ask the people in Ogden about it.

The thing that worries me about this is that if the zoning gets changed to light industrial, we're going to get big ugly factories across the street from the park and by our houses no matter what. This is a totally inappropriate place to put industry. People say it's the only place in Honeyville to put industry, and maybe that's true. If that's the case, then we need to think of a different way to bring money into the town. I'm guessing we'll be just fine without it. People say, "Honeyville's got to grow or die!" This is ridiculous. Honeyville has survived and thrived for a hundred years without "industry," and we can do without it for another hundred.

Biodiesel Ad Hoc Research Results:

There is a facility located in Isanti, Michigan that is the first and only factory of this kind, the kind BioPipe LLC is trying to put in to Honeyville, in the world. The company out there is called Ever Cat Fuels.

So I called some businesses near the Ever Cat Fuels factory just to see what people would say about it. I received both positive and negative responses. What follows are condensed notes from longer conversations with the businesses I spoke with...

Business Owner located very near to Ever Cat (didn't want his name or business used):

"I hate that place. You can't even open your windows on a hot night it smells so bad. At best it smells like french fries, at worst it smells like rancid oil.”

He said the site is not well maintained and he believes it will probably be out of business in a few years leaving a big warehouse and tanks as an eyesore. He said it is just a prototype factory used to sell licenses where the real money would be made (note: as of now there are no other factories currently in production using this process).

“I would never put a place like that in a residential area and I would fight tooth and nail to make sure it wasn't put near my house if I were you."

Bakery Owner (3 blocks away as reported by the owner):

"I've never smelled anything from the plant and have no problem with them. I drive past there twice a day to get here and have never smelled anything. I have no bias, I don't know them, and haven't had any problems with them at all. My granddaughter plays at the park a block away and I've never smelled it there either."

I then asked her how often her business is baking and she said she bakes 24/7 and that her neighbors love it because it always smells so good. I asked her if that might be why nobody ever thinks it smells bad near her business and she said "…that's probably right. Maybe you want to call some business on the other side of the factory and talk to them and see what they think--like the bowling alley. Maybe it's different for them; of course, I still don't smell it when I drive by the factory."

However, I also followed up by asking her if she would put a factory like that next to her house and she said "No. Especially, if I had little children. There isn't a smell, but it's still a factory."

She later noted that "it was originally reported that the factory would provide a number of jobs to our small community, but that didn't really materialize as most of the jobs were higher paying skilled jobs that went to people with expertise from outside the community."

She recommended I talk with Isanti City of the Chamber of Commerce to get more accurate information on that particular subject as she was just repeating what she had heard. (I haven't had to chance to do that yet).

Bowling Alley Employee (about 1/2 mile from the factory):

He started by noting he had already talked to someone from Utah about this and that he would tell me the same thing...

"I don't really notice it. You wouldn't know that it's even there except you can smell it when it gets really hot or when the wind blows, but it's not too bad."

After more discussion he told me I should probably call back later and discuss it with someone else, since he has had issues with his sense of smell in the past 2 or 3 years and can't really smell very well anymore.

So I called back and talked to a different employee who said:

"Oh no! By your house! Never!"

I asked why not and she said "because it stinks! It smells all the time, day or night. I have to drive past it twice a day and I hate driving by there. Some people say they can't smell it, but it smells all the time. It's not really a terrible smell; it's just a weird smell; a bad smell. I would never want to live next to it. Maybe it wouldn't be too bad if you don't have a sensitive nose, but I would never want to live by that place. Don't listen to people who say it doesn't stink, it does! I hope you don't have to live by one."

I asked her if she smelled it all the time at the bowling alley and she said they "smell it when it's hot or when the wind blows, but not all the time."

Rental business (5 blocks away same direction as bowling alley):

"I never smell anything from them. I take my son to the park by there all the time and have never smelled anything."

I asked him what the site was like and he said "it's clean and well-maintained. They rent stuff from us and they're really good guys."

I then asked him if he would want to live next to it and he said “no, it doesn’t belong near houses.”

introductory information

A man has approached Honeyville City and asked to have the property west of the railroad tracks on Highway 40, across the street from the park, rezoned as industrial, because he would like to build a biodiesel processing facility there. He does not own the property and is not a resident of Honeyville. He will be processing used cooking oil to make the biodiesel. He says that the process he is using is safer than that used at the biodiesel plant in Centerville that caught on fire and burned down, along with the autobody shop next door.

The Planning and Zoning Commission has recommended that the zoning change, and the City Council is in favor of it, because they feel that Honeyville is a "town of need," and that the rezoning will bring money into our town, so that we can pay for things like police.

I disagree with their assessment. I think Honeyville is a great place to live, and I like that we are away from stores and factories and the other trappings of city life. This is why I live in the country. And frankly, I don't think there's a need for a policeman in our town. What would he have to do besides give speeding tickets? But I understand that other people want to see Honeyville grow, and that is fairly reasonable. But managed, appropriate growth is what we need, not jumping through hoops for the first stranger who breezes into town and wants us to do him a favor. Not an industrial park on the main thoroughfare into town. If the zoning in that area must change, because there is no other place for business growth, then it should change to commercial, not industrial. Aside from property tax and possibly a couple of jobs within the plant itself, our town will see very little money from the biodiesel factory. Commercial ventures, on the other hand, have a much greater possibility of bringing much more money into our town from sales tax alone.

A fuel-processing facility, no matter how "clean" it is (this is unsubstantiated), does not belong next to houses, next to the park, and on the main road into town. Absolutely not. If we must grow, let's grow better, not uglier. Let's keep Honeyville a beautiful, rural place that people are proud to call their hometown.

The Flyer

WARNING for all residents of Honeyville…

• Want a Biodiesel Factory near the center of Honeyville?
• Want an Industrial Park next to the City Park?
• Want our town to smell like used fast food grease when it’s hot or windy?

We must act now! The Planning and Zoning Commission has recommended making 17 acres across from the city park an Industrial zone in part to allow for a biodiesel factory to be built there. We can stop it.

Public Hearing at the City Offices

Wednesday, May 11^th, 7:00 pm

Come help us protect our town! It’s up to you…