To the editor:

I have been involved in town politics and worked as a volunteer since I moved back to Tiverton in 1992. I've seen town councils come and go, along with department heads. This current council leadership seems to be the worst ever. 

Several years ago, when we tried to extend the life of the town’s landfill, Trish and Denise back dealt it, and the letter never went to our state representative asking for the legislation. So the extension that we paid an engineer to document never happened. They made up a water pollution claim, and now we have to close the landfill in November.  Test wells showed no ground water pollution. We paid thousands to drill them out of the closure account.  

So now we have to build a site to take mattresses, large plastic, recycles, and electronics. The previous Public Works director had a plan to place the site at public works just behind the salt shed, at a cost of $55,000. Most of the cost was for paving and a small retention pond.  

The Town Council’s current proposal would cost close to $1 million. It would be way back in the industrial park above Stafford Pond, a public drinking water supply. The site work will cost $600,000 to prepare. and the road $400,000. That's a million dollars for a site that will serve about 40 people a week.

The site we proposed at DPW, according to the current council president, is too wet.  Yet we have a salt shed,  a diesel fuel tank, a gas tank, and a half dozen old trucks sitting there, and Trish says it's too wet?  

This council leadership has failed to listen to people who worked on this problem for years. We can build a small collection site because only a small number of people will be using it. Portsmouth has a half acre site, and it works fine. Why do we need a 5 acre site that will cost a million dollars. We need some common sense candidate to run in 2020. 

Joe Sousa 

Member, Tiverton Budget Committee