Not a single person, citizen, taxpayer, landowner who spoke or asked questions during the meeting sounded positive in any way, shape, form or fashion about any part of this proposal. With little to go on, these local people shot holes in the plan from almost every angle anyway.
The experts were very smooth at repairing the breech but in the end, there was no one in that room who was impressed with the plan. Let me reiterate, no one! You may hear some attempts at a positive spin by some of the proponents or even politicians in attendance but don’t be fooled. If you were in that meeting and you weren’t on the payroll to sell the deal (and making a whole lot of money to do it) you came out of the meeting with a very negative feeling.
A few examples brought up by the citizens were related to, for example, if you were in an area that was restricted or you had sold your development rights, if you had 20 acres you could divide it between family members three times. So the question to the experts was, “What if you have four children or seven?” Well, that answer was definitely a crash and burn. Another question related to this was, “How am I supposed to decide which of my children gets left out?” Crash and burn.
If your house is on less than 20 acres and it burns you can’t rebuild. That would render your property completely useless. Crash and burn. I am going to request numbers from the city and county fire services as to how many houses burn each year.
Probably the most incisive question tonight was, “Since this is a life-changing situation, not just modifying a few zoning regs, can’t we put it to the people in the form of a referendum?” Brilliant! The responses from Hunter Hall, the moderator and Mr. Hanson, the expert from up North, were kinda short. Like, umm, no we usually see the governing body making these kind of decisions. We don’t care what you usually see. We at least want a referendum. There is no rush. We can do it anytime we have a general election, even next year would be good. After the meeting a few people even stated they thought it would be a good idea to have a referendum right now to vote on shutting this mess down.
So in conclusion, what was the most prominent remark heard tonight after the formal meeting? It was, “Why are our elected officials not answering these questions?” We don’t want to hear from these out-of-town people who are getting paid to hammer us. We want our elected officials up front answering the questions. They have to be informed enough to make decisions about this proposal or is it going to be like Pelosi’s comment about Obamacare, “We had to pass it to find out what was in it.”
One of my learned contemporaries stated tonight, “We need to split the county down highway 81 and establish another county. Leave the West to the existing county and start over again on the eastern side.” You should be careful about getting the folks to thinking too hard because they might actually come up with a simple solution.
Doesn’t anyone see this as a racial issue? I am appalled we havent already heard from some organization like the NAACP! It certainly appears the powers that be want to keep all the black folks over on the western side of the county so the white folks can enjoy whatever it is they think they need to be enjoying over on the eastern side. I don’t like this plan one bit for more reasons than I feel like typing about right now but this is sure one of them.
Samuel Martin Hay III
