GAINESVILLE - Community leaders say they have 200 signatures on a petition and they will attend this Thursday's Hall County Commission meeting ready to fight a proposed landfill.
Six residents who live in Hall County's District 4 appeared at Monday afternoon's county commission work session to encourage commissioners to oppose a plan to rezone a 50.97-acre tract of land on the east side of Monroe Drive off Atlanta Highway to allow for construction of a landfill.
At least one of those residents, Esco Riley, had already made his appeal before the Hall County Planning Commission. Planners voted 3-2 to approve the plan, however, with conditions.
Riley said the community will not give up the fight.
"Enough is enough," he told commissioners as he outlined for them the problems the community already has with illegal dumping in the area. He noted that the smell coming from the property is already unbearable, and he said the fear is that the odor will be worse if a landfill is built.
Rev. Evelyn Johnson, the pastor of Bethel AME Church on Mill Street, told commissioners that the county already has enough landfills.
"If we have at least seven or eight landfills already, why are you going to impose on us another landfill," she asked.
District 4 Commissioner Ashley Bell told his fellow commissioners he would not tell them how to vote Thursday, but he encouraged them to visit the area to see...and smell...for themselves the problems the residents had brought before the commission.
Monday
May 6th, 2024
6:53AM
