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Our Community, Our News
JANUARY 24, 2013
Vol. 57 No. 16
Morton Grove
Lakeshore Waste unveils merger plan Company’s past proposals have irked residents By Alex V. Hernandez Staff Reporter
Bugle File Photo
Scenes like these from the cleanup of the February 2011 blizzard that paralysed the Midwest have become a distant memory in the wake of unseasonably warm temperatures the past two years.
Hold the salt
Another mild winter could come with a cost this spring By Laura Katauskas Staff Reporter
Whether or not you like the white, fluffy stuff coating the streets, the lack of snow and unseasonable temperatures are a mixed blessing for most, with the ramifications of a mild winter lurking to a possible problematic spring. Jan. 14 marked the end of the first half of meteorological winter, according to the National Weather Service, and for the second year in a row, the first half of winter has started out abnormally
warm with much below-average snowfall. Without any meaningful cold or snow so far this winter, it’s not just unusual, but recordbreaking. The first day of the 2012-13 winter with a sub-freezing high was Jan. 1, which ties the record for the latest first sub-freezing high on record in Chicago.The Chicago area also set a new record for the most number of consecutive days without a sub-freezing high temperature at 310 days, though that streak ended Dec. 31. See WINTER, page 3
Morton Grove Mayor Dan Staackmann announced at the Jan. 14 board meeting the merger of Morton Grove waste and recycling company, Lakeshore Waste Services, with Chicagoland recycling company Recycling Services, Inc., to create a new company called Lakeshore Recycling Systems. Staackmann said he and village administrator Ryan Horne met with Lakeshore Waste Services president Josh Connell Jan. 18 to talk about what this merger means for the future of Morton Grove. Last Aug. 13, more than a hundred residents attended a meeting of the Morton Grove Board of Trustees to protest the Lakeshore Waste Services’ plan to put a waste transfer station at its Morton Grove site at 6132 W. Oakton St. in an industrial area adjacent to the train tracks on the east, near corporate headquarters of Lakeshore Waste Services and a half-mile west of Niles West High School.
Vocal opposition At that meeting, Horne gave a presentation on status of the
potential project, but Lakeshore Waste Services had not submitted a formal application to move forward on the project yet. “Close to 20 people voiced their opposition to the proposal during the public comments, which lasted close to two hours,” Horne said of that August meeting. Then a group named “The Citizens to Stop the Morton Grove Transfer Station” was formed in mid-July last year after some residents had learned that the village and Lakeshore Waste Services were discussing safeguards related to the project. Horne said locating a waste transfer station in an industrial area within Morton Grove could bring the village about $60,000 or more a year. He said that the transfer station should not disturb residents with noise or smells, either. “We’ll have a better use of a vacant area in our industrial section, we will collect a host benefit fee and they’ll provide services to our residents, such as electronics recycling, that we don’t have right now,” said Horne.
Resident concerns Yet Morton Grove residents are concerned about the size of land necessary for a transfer station that would potentially handle 500 tons of waste a day. The Citizens to Stop the Morton See PLAN, page 2