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Attention All Supporters of Ending VET Testing!

    The members of Stop The VET will be attending the next meeting of the Jefferson County Fiscal Court which will be held on Tuesday June 25th to speak to County Judge Rebecca Jackson and the County Commissioners about VET testing in Jefferson County and we are requesting you to attend this meeting.

     Here is some important information you need to know about this meeting which starts at 10:00 AM! 

1)  For those people who want to speak, you must sign in NO LATER than 9:45 AM, so I suggest you be there no later than 9:30 AM to be safe!  Speakers who have signed in will be allowed to address Fiscal Court for NO MORE than 3 minutes each!  I recommend that you prepare a written statement to be submitted and cover the highlights in your oral statements.  Please, you must keep your oral statements under 3 minutes.

2)  For those people who will not be able to attend and for those who will attend and not sign in to give oral statements,  please consider submitting a written statement.  Anyone who will not be able to attend can send  their written statement to me at JRiley8609@msn.com and I will deliver them as part of my presentation.

The Purpose of Attending This Meeting, Some History and Important Information

    Stop the VET was started over 2 years ago in an effort to expose the truth regarding the VET.  (There was and is tremendous support throughout Jefferson County to end VET testing.)  At that time we focused our efforts on the members of Jefferson County Fiscal Court which was and still is headed up by County Judge Executive Rebecca Jackson.  County Judge Jackson and the other 3 District Commissioners received hundreds of phone calls and letters asking them to address the issue.  They decided to turn a deaf ear to our requests to engage in serious discussions regarding ending the VET.  They ignored the public outcry and decided to continue VET testing despite overwhelming support for a change.

    We then turned our attention to the Kentucky State Legislature in Frankfort.  Sen. Dan Seum of Jefferson County, who has opposed VET testing for many years, tried unsuccessfully to pass legislation in the 2001 General Assembly to end the testing.  The legislation was passed in the Kentucky Senate, however, Rep. Larry Clark in the House was instrumental in blocking this bill in the Kentucky House of Representatives.  It was not allowed to even come up for a vote!

    This year we were successful in the state legislature!  With the help of Sen. Seum, Sen. Denton and Rep. Perry Clark (also of Jefferson County) and most of the candidates for the new Jefferson County Metro Government along with thousands of phone calls to Frankfort from the citizens of Jefferson County asking for an end to VET testing, House Bill 618 passed. 

    Rep. Larry Clark again tried to block the legislation until he could no longer bear the political damage of going against the overwhelming support of voters in his own district to end the VET.  Once Rep. Larry Clark decided it was in his best political interest to allow a vote on the issue in the Kentucky House, the bill passed by an overwhelming 89 to 7 vote on the House floor.  The Kentucky State Legislature finally addressed what Jefferson County Fiscal Court decided to ignore.  Jefferson County Judge Rebecca Jackson, Mr. Art Williams, director of the Jefferson County Air Pollution Control District (APCD) and the Courier Journal newspaper mounted up as much support as they could muster (to keep VET testing) and they were defeated!

    Then, despite the overwhelming support of the citizens of Jefferson County, the overwhelming support of the Kentucky State Legislature and the overwhelming support of candidates for the new Louisville Metro District Council the APCD director, Art Williams, submitted an 8 page letter to Gov. Patton asking him to veto the legislation.  Gov. Patton signed the bill anyway which will end VET testing as of November 2003. 

    The importance of attending this Jefferson County Fiscal Court meeting on June 25th is to reaffirm the will of the citizens of Jefferson County to end VET testing and to request a change of focus on the methods to keep the Jefferson County's air quality in attainment with air quality standards without the use of VET testing.   It appears that the only way to make a serious change of focus is to remove and replace anyone on the Air Pollution Control Board and within the office of the Jefferson County Air Pollution Control District who choose to ignore the people and act against the citizens of Jefferson County.  Mr. Art Williams is the first one that should be asked to resign due to his obvious disregard for the will of the people.

    It is important to know that Art Williams is paid by the citizens of Jefferson County.   However, Mr. Williams interests go far beyond Jefferson County.  Mr. Williams is also the current president of the Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials (ALAPCO), which is a private non-governmental organization (NGO).   Mr. Williams travels extensively around the country on behalf of ALAPCO.  In addition, Mr. Williams has attended the following "conference of the parties" (COP) meetings which are sponsored by the United Nations conference on "global warming":

                    1) COP 3 in Kyoto, Japan Dec. 1-10, 1997

                    2) COP 4 in Buenos Aires, Argentina  Nov. 2-13, 1998

                    3) COP 5 Bonn, Germany  Oct. 25 - Nov. 5, 1999

                    4) COP 6 The Hague, Netherlands  Nov. 13-24, 2000

                    5) COP 6 (Part 2) Bonn, Germany Jul. 16-27, 2001

                    6) COP 7 Marrakesh, Morocco  Oct. 29 - Nov. 9, 2001

    He recently attended a meeting in Hamilton, Ontario (Canada) in Feb. 2002.

    These trips are apparently paid for by the ALAPCO which receives much of its funding from the EPA.  However, he obviously has a very rigorous travel schedule away from Jefferson County and I suspect he spends much of his time while in Jefferson County working on his national and international interests, using the office of "Director" of the Jefferson County APCD as his base of operations. 

    Due to Mr. Williams national and international travel on behalf of ALAPCO (an NGO), his obvious and  total disregard for our "representative government" and his continued desire to keep VET testing against the will of the people,  it is time for Fiscal Court to respectfully ask for his resignation and replace him with someone that will work on behalf of the citizens of Jefferson County.

    Since our success earlier this year in Frankfort and upon learning about Mr. Williams letter to the Governor asking him to "VETO" the bill to end VET testing members of Stop The VET and other Jefferson County citizens sent letters and placed phone calls to County Judge Rebecca Jackson and Fiscal Court asking for Mr. Williams resignation.  These letters and phone calls, so far, have been ignored, AGAIN!  Now we need to take time and make time to go to the next Fiscal Court meeting and let them know that the citizens of Jefferson County no longer want to be ignored and to demand action.

    We want Fiscal Court to acknowledge the will of the people and to immediately begin to change the focus and direction of the Air Pollution Control Board and the Jefferson County Air Pollution Control District office.  A request for Mr. Williams resignation would be a good start.  We no longer want to be ignored on this issue!

Thank you for your time and if you need any additional information please feel free to call me at 425-5783 or email me at JRiley8609@msn.com .   I will look forward to your reply and to seeing you at the Fiscal Court meeting June 25th.

Sincerely,

John Riley

Member of Stop The VET

For more information on ALAPCO please read the following World Net Daily Articles by Henry Lamb.

Who's making the laws? April 22nd, 2002

EPA hires million-dollar lobbyist.  May 4th, 2002

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