To hear Presiding Commissioner John Griesheimer and County Council Mark Vincent tell it, plenty of time has been made available to the public for comment on the new land use regulations being drafted for Franklin County. But as I remember it the public was consistently silenced when it came to discussing any specifics of the coal ash landfill Ameren Missouri wants to build in the Labadie Bottoms floodplain, or the hazards that will inevitably come with it.

They told us only public comments would be allowed that pertained to land use regulations in general. They said any discussion of coal or Ameren’s proposed landfill was out of bounds and would not be allowed. They said it was irrelevant to the regulations under consideration and the public should restrict its input to this vary narrow interpretation.

So I was a little shocked to see that the written document of the proposed regulations is almost entirely dedicated to the subject of storing coal ash waste in a landfill somewhere in Franklin County. I wonder where that might be?

The county commissioners have essentially told the public opposition to Ameren’s landfill to “sit down and shut up,” while hiding behind procedure and legaleze. They can now make the claim that they gave the public a fair hearing while pushing through regulations custom made for their most vital constituent: Ameren. All these public hearings were just for show.