Help Keep a Concrete Facility Away From School.
Donation protected
Friends,
Our community needs your support in defending the health and safety of our residents and children. The Village Board has approved a special use permit for a concrete manufacturing and crushing facility to go in approximately 1300 feet from the back door of our schools. The football fields, baseball fields, and track are even closer in proximity. There are also several residences that will be 1000 feet or under from the facility. The community approved this measure with no proper environmental assessment completed by a Certified/Licensed Industrial Hygienist.
All of this was done against the will of many of the residents in the Village and parents of children in the school. A petition was presented to the Board with over 400 signatures of Downs Residents and Tri-Valley Parents. During public comment an overwhelming majority spoke against this at the meeting; while I don't have exact numbers on e-mails sent and in person speaking during public comment I can confidently say it was over 50 opposed and under 5 for. Our Mayor represented the tie-breaking vote (4-3) stating that he represented the "silent majority" that are in favor of this within the community. It was asked that these people please come and state their case at the final meeting and two people spoke in favor, meanwhile another ~20 spoke against.
We greatly appreciate the three Trustees that voted with the people; however, in seeing that a majority of our Village Trustees were not going to do what was in the interest of those who elected them we have taken matters into our own hands and filed a formal complaint against the special use permit issued. With this we are going to have mounting legal costs over the next 12-18 months but feel it is necessary to protect ourselves. We ask you to donate anything you can to help ease the hardship this creates for our Plaintiffs. The complaint can be read at this link below.
Thank you,
Jake Tucker
Organizer
Jacob Tucker
Organizer
Downs, IL