Dear Mr. Mayor:

Several Council members are frustrated with the recent actions surrounding the Coal-Tar Sealant controversy.  As  you may recall, this topic was remanded to the Community Involvement Committee which held several fact-finding meetings and concluded that the evidence locally was inconclusive.

The committee crafted a resolution to go to Council suggesting that, among other items,

      a)   the issue be tabled until July, 2011 so that Austin, TX could complete its follow-up study;

      b)   the Department of Public Works be directed to take sediment samples at the same time that it was taking water samples to determine if PAHs existed and whether Springfield even had a problem;

      c)    the Department of Public Works be directed to develop a training module for apartment-building owners regarding the possible presence of PAHs in coal-tar sealants;

      d)   the EPA and Missouri Department of Natural Resources be monitored to see if any new regulations regarding coal-tar sealants were released.

The committee then agreed to wait until after the presentation on the Austin, TX study by the personnel from the United States Geological Survey and, following the presentation, would meet to finalize the resolution for Council.  In addition to the members of the Committee, the meeting was attended by Council members Compton and Chiles.

However, on August 11, 2010, Mayor Pro Tem Dan Chiles announced publicly that he had sent a letter to the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency regarding coal-tar sealants.  In this letter, he referred to sealants as “large volumes of toxic wastes;” he accused the EPA of “dithering;” and he contends that parking lot sealants are a “government-sanctioned environmental disaster.”

While we have no objection to Dan’s voicing his opinions, we do object to his use of City of Springfield letterhead and the use of his title of Mayor Pro Tem to provide an apparent official authority for the letter.

Rather than have this discussion go public, we’d like to ask that you set up a training session for Council during one of our upcoming Tuesday study sessions.  The topic could be a) public versus private communication, b) how to separate personal opinion from official action, and c) working and communicating together to be an effective Council. 

Most of the time we have ignored these occurrences with a “Well, that’s just Dan” or a “Doug’s at it again.”  However, the recent occurrences have gone beyond what we are comfortable overlooking.

I look forward to your reply.