ELYRIA — Charlie Wirth did­n’t resign quietly from the Lorain County Solid Waste Management District’s Policy Committee on Tuesday.

Instead, Wirth said he was leaving because he didn’t feel the district, which oversees an annual budget of about $3 mil­lion, was being open about how it spends its money and con­ducts its operations. “There is a constant cloud of deception surrounding the dis­trict that I find intolerable,” Wirth said before leaving the meeting.

Wirth said later that he does­n’t regret his comments or his decision not to seek reappoint­ment to the board he has served on for more than five years.

He said he never felt that Dan Billman, the district’s retiring executive director, was being upfront about how the district was spending its money, including at the recently opened recycling collections center on Abbe Road in Elyria.

Wirth and Billman have clashed during previous meet­ings of the committee over how much authority the committee has to oversee the finances of the district, with Billman argu­ing that the job of the Policy Committee is to provide input on long-range goals. Wirth and others had contended that they had a responsibility to make certain the district’s money was being spent wisely.

“He wanted an interpreta­tion and never really got it,” said Howard Akin, another Pol­icy Committee member. “I share parts of his frustration, and I would like to see the shar­ing of information come much more readily.”

Billman, who will end his 11­year stint with the district later this month, said he took offense at Wirth’s parting com­ments.

“There has never been any deception on the policy com­mittee, the press, the populace, the constituents,” Billman said. “Everything was above board.”

Wirth isn’t the only person leaving the Policy Committee, which is currently working on revising the county’s solid waste management plan. Those revisions could mean reductions to the $1.5 million in grants the district has tradi­tionally handed out to county communities.

The last time the committee revised the plan, it paved the way for Allied Waste to imple­ment its controversial “pay-as­you- throw” program, which has since been put in place in the communities the company serves in Lorain County.

Also no longer on the com­mittee are Avon businessman Brian Parsons and longtime Chairwoman Beth Barber, a Nordson employee who served as the industry representative on the committee.

Barber was replaced during Tuesday’s meeting by fellow Nordson employee Kenneth Schneider, but the seats held by Parsons and Wirth remain open.

Among the applicants for the unpaid positions are Billman, Sheffield Lake Grants Adminis­trator Bill Gardner, Elyria podi­atrist David Hintz, Kipton Mayor Bob Meilander, Sheffield Lake Storm Water Utilities Board Chairwoman Rosa Gee and Lorain County Farm Bureau President Alfred DiVen­cenzo.

The committee expects to conduct interviews for the open seats in the coming weeks, but some of the remain­ing members already have expressed concerns about Bill­man joining their ranks, in part because he still rents land he owns to the company now run­ning the salvage yard he used to operate on Infirmary Road.

Akin said he also worries about what the impact of Bill­man joining the board would have on the new executive director, Keith Bailey.

Billman said he simply wants to continue to offer his experi­ence to the district.

County Commissioner Ted Kalo, who also sits on the Policy Committee, said he believes Billman’s experience would be good for the committee.

“Dan would bring a lot of knowledge to the table,” Kalo said.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

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