One of the more spectacular examples of your mayor and council not working for you was in evidence at the June 12 council meeting.

GVRD CAO Johnny Carline and a senior engineer made a presentation on the proposed new solid waste management plan to Metro Vancouver Chair and Delta Mayor Lois Jackson and her council. According to the Province (July 19), Jackson and Carline are proposing ".. a projected 54-per-cent increase to [taxpayers] regional utility bills over a five-year period - a cool $233."

One component of this grand tax hike is the cost of solid waste disposal. Part of the plan is to foist increased responsibilities for recycling and waste diversion on to municipalities, and it's not clear if the cost of these items is included in the GVRD tax hike.

As for the Vancouver Landfill, the GVRD does not own or control the Vancouver Landfill - Vancouver does. Vancouver saves a lot of money by having its own landfill, and Delta gets a windfall as it disposes its solid waste in the Vancouver Landfill for free.

As a result Vancouver is less than enthusiastic about losing its landfill, and you would think that Delta council would be quite concerned about the adverse impact to its taxpayers as well. But no. The topic of the financial consequences to Delta was never raised by the mayor or her councillors at the presentation by the senior GVRD officials. Why not? Afterward Delta CAO George Harvie tried to raise the issue of enhanced environmental impacts, but he got short shrift from the mayor and council.

Mayor Jackson has a severe conflict of interest in this matter and she has not explained how Delta will not be especially harmed by the solid waste plan she is proposing. It might be very cost-effective for Delta taxpayers to increase her salary by $100,000 so she can drop the second job and lobby against the proposed solid waste plan on our behalf.

Coun. Scott Hamilton's involvement in this issue has also been interesting. Hamilton scored a junket to Europe last year to visit garbage incinerators, and returned to be the lead spokesman for inhaling fumes. When the proposal by a major Vancouver developer to build an incinerator on the TFN reserve arose last year, I recall that Global TV News did not have a spokesman from either the developer's firm or the TFN government. But it did find Hamilton, who represented neither party, willing to go on the air and extol the project notwithstanding that there was nothing in it for South Delta but air pollution. Hamilton showed a photo of a similar plant in downtown Paris, however, none was presented of a prototype in downtown Vancouver. Why would Vancouver want one? It has a perfectly good landfill. With Hamilton on your side, watch your lungs and your wallet.