The tour of the Wedgewood area landfills and pits yesterday was a perfect example of what can happen when state and county officials work together on an issue. For the first in nearly half a century, the residents of the Wedgewood area neighborhoods felt their elected officials were listening.
I caught up with Commissioner Lumon May late last night. He was exhausted, still dressed in his light blue polo shirt with “County Commissioner” on the breast, khakis and work boots with traces of mud on their edges. May was the one who organized the tour and had asked State Rep. Mike Hill to join him.
“Today was great,” said May. “If you don’t have a passion for people, you shouldn’t do this job.”
The commissioner said that he had fought the county staff over the testing and had gotten pushback on touring the dumps, but now they appeared to be onboard with doing something.
“But this isn’t something that can be fixed in a month,” he said. “It didn’t happen overnight and we can’t fix overnight.”
May was impressed with Rep. Hill. “He got it and said the right things about helping these people.”
Towards the end of our conversation, the commissioner talked about how a 93-year-old Wedgewood resident had come up to him crying after the tour was over. “I’ve been fighting these dumps for 50 years,” she said. “I couldn’t get Willie Junior to do anything. I couldn’t get Marie Young to do anything. You are the first one who really cared. Now I can I die knowing that somebody cares about Wedgewood.”
