Catholics fighting waste plant: Commissioner insulted us

The members of Holy Vietnamese Martyrs Catholic Mission in Norcross didn’t need much more ammunition in their fight against a proposed waste transfer station next to their church, the site of a defunct Chevrolet dealership.

But, they say, Commissioner Kevin Kenerly gave them just that at a Dec. 16 public hearing.

In moving to approve the waste transfer station, Kenerly told the overflow audience — almost all church members — that while churches are important, he was reluctant to deny the developer’s request because “you might outgrow that piece” of land.

“If you do outgrow that piece, it’s still Timmer’s Chevrolet to me,” he said.

C.C. Nguyen, spokesman for the church community, said the comment came across to his fellow parishioners as an insult.

“It took us 12 years to get to this point,” he said. “We have worked our tails off to build what we have today.”

The sentiment is shared by officials with the Archdiocese of Atlanta, which oversees Catholic parishes in the metro area.

“I personally found it equally as offensive,” said Dennis Kelly, project manager with Catholic Church Services Inc., the church’s real estate wing. “We don’t go out and buy property on a temporary basis. Our parishes are there forever.”

Kenerly didn’t return a telephone message left on his cellphone and left Tuesday’s County Commission meeting before a reporter could ask him about the church’s concerns.

The church has already twice packed to overflowing the auditorium of the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center for public hearings on the project, and has launched an online petition drive to further demonstrate opposition to the project.

Now, the church is trying to recruit Catholics from other Gwinnett parishes to flood the county with messages before the scheduled Feb. 3 decision on the project.

There’s some 23,350 families registered to Catholic parishes in the county, Kelly said.

“That’s a sizable number of voters,” he said. The developer’s attorney, Lee Tucker, argues that all of the waste dumping and transferring would occur inside the building, which would be made to blend in with the surrounding offices and warehouses. Its location near I-85 means landfill-bound trucks loaded with garbage will be off surface streets onto the highway quickly, he has said.

But church members say the waste transfer station would endanger the health and safety, as well as the sense of community, of its 4,000 member families and some 800 children who attend Sunday school classes and other events at the church. Nearby business and building owners also oppose the proposal.