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Thursday, May 26, 2011
Recycling Station Plans Rejected Commissioners All Oppose Facility
By Dan McKay
Journal Staff Writer
Bernalillo County commissioners unanimously rejected plans for a recycling station on South Broadway after a contentious hearing this week.
The commission's decision Tuesday affirmed an earlier determination by the County Planning Commission, which recommended the permit be denied.
Opponents of the station cited concerns about large truck traffic, odors and the volume of waste to be handled there.
The company seeking the permit, NMRT LLC, planned to build a transfer station and materials recovery facility on a 25-acre site near South Broadway and Rio Bravo. The company wanted to recover recyclables from waste generated within Bernalillo County.
Its representatives said a similar facility had been approved for a competing company and that denying NMRT's application would be arbitrary and capricious.
The hearing took an odd turn right from the beginning. Opponents of the project had requested that Commissioner Michael Wiener recuse himself from the meeting and abstain from considering the case. He refused.
The request was based on comments Wiener made in an earlier hearing on the issue. In December, when the application first surfaced before the commission, Wiener said he had already heard a presentation on behalf of the applicant, during a meeting in his office.
That was a problem, opponents said, because zoning matters are supposed to be treated as a "quasi-judicial" proceeding in which commissioners act as judges, considering only the evidence and sworn testimony presented during an official hearing.
Wiener said he had accidentally "mischaracterized" his knowledge of the case. He didn't actually receive a presentation, he said. He simply ran into a company representative in passing and they talked briefly, Wiener said Tuesday.
"I've done nothing wrong," he said.
In the end, he joined the other four commissioners in denying NMRT's appeal after a 90-minute hearing. The vote drew loud cheers from the audience.
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