"Sounds Too Good to Be True": WFAA Sifts Through a Few Issues With Flow Control

The council may or may not vote on that ordinance involving the redirecting and recycling of solid waste today. It all depends where flow control falls on the action-packed agenda, which includes passing the budget (that should go smoothly) and debating Yucatan and Service Bar's denied-at-CPC specific use permits (which may not) and which will ultimately be cut short due to the start of Rosh Hashanah.

On the other side is Brett Shipp's flow control piece that aired last night, which was teased in yesterday's comments and which, for those who haven't read all the Unfair Park items and attendant comments from those pro and con, sums up some of the debate over sending all the city's solid waste to the McCommas Bluff Landfill. Shipp also takes a quick look at Organic Energy Corporation, which, it says on its website, is "seeking permission from the City of Dallas to build a multimillion dollar recycling facility at the McCommas Bluff Landfill," per its website, despite never having done any such thing.

Shipp doesn't mention that Tennell Atkins, who was once against flow control and is now pushing it (and that "stimulus fund"), was also among those who took a taxpayer-funded trip to the "resource recovery" plant in California. And he also doesn't get into the reason for the rush to approve flow control, which first came before the council last year as one of three revenue-generating brainstorms (which is all it's ever been about anyway). Sources say it's simple: No, the expected $14 million in revenue from tipping fees at the landfill won't go toward this year's budget, but it'll sure help out next fiscal year -- when the mayor, city manager and city council have to start paying back the cops and firefighters who, thanks to meet and confer, had some of their salaries deferred till next year. Says here we'll owe them around $38 million come next next September. Jump. If you still can.