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Health & Fitness

GREEN HAVEN INC.'S APPLICATION

    I have a few thoughts regarding the February 12th and the February 26th Public Hearings on Green Haven’s application.

    Attorney Smith's comments on February 12th to the Commission are disingenuous and misleading. He implied that the Commission was ruling on a single issue devoid of connection with reality. He suggested that the Commission was ruling on a piece of paper. The Commission is certainly not ruling on a piece of paper or even on a single regulation. The Commission is ruling on the future. In this case, the Commission is ruling on nothing less than an ordinance that will mark a turning point in Bethany’s history. If it decides in favor of the applicant, it will be turning its back on Bethany’s rural past and its most endearing trait. It would be shamefully marking the point when Bethany moved towards becoming a city.

    Regarding Green Haven’s application: Let me point out to the readers that farming is not a part of it. You can’t force people to farm. Pretending to farm is much easier and it makes for a terrific tax dodge, though, as I mentioned on Feb. 12th. The Green Haven Inc. group are INVESTORS, pretending to be back-to-the-landers. They are developers who’ve figuratively exchanged their business suits for overalls and earth shoes. According to their website, they have 1 member who apparently has some farming background. This certainly does not translate into everything you need to know to farm successfully. Real farmers nowadays have agricultural degrees. Even their Johnny Appleseed presenter couldn’t get his compost story straight. All the farm talk is just a smoke screen. Neighbors, ask yourself, where is the money coming from? They have hired not 1, not 2 but 6 big companies to create this elaborate facade. These services do not come cheap. This is not a back-to-the-land dream of a few old hippies who never got out of the sixties. This is a well-financed corporation: Like most corporations, it is intent on profit.

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    The engineers they have hired play pretty loose with the truth. Let me give you an example: the traffic study concluded that this condo development would have no impact on traffic on Route 63. This is a lie that flies in the face of both common sense and the personal experience of just about everyone who lives in Bethany. Every workday morning, Route 63 backs up about a ½ mile south of the Route 67 intersection. Depending on the weather and the school buses, it is roughly a ½ hour bumper-to-bumper trip from there to the Route 15 North entrance ramp. The road is ALREADY pretty much at capacity. The remainder of their engineering reports share that same respect for truth: that is to say no respect.

    Green Haven is claiming that this development will make it possible for salt-of-the-earth people like teachers & policemen to move to Bethany. Neighbors, just who do you think it is that already lives in Bethany? This town is filled with teachers and plumbers, firemen and carpenters, accountants and electricians: Working people who bought their homes the old fashioned way: They worked for them. I myself earned the down payment for my home by working nights & weekends and I don’t think that’s unusual in the least. Most of us worked hard to get here and we enjoy our homes as the well-earned fruits of that labor. I was raised with a healthy respect for credit: If you wanted something, you worked extra hard, saved up and then bought it. If it was beyond your means, you gave it up. The thought of public assistance to purchase something you personally wanted was just out of bounds.

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    Speaking of our homes, The Planning and Zoning Commission owes it to the residents of this town to protect our property values. All things that hold their value are rare. Nothing is more common in surrounding towns than houses cheek-by-jowl with their neighbors. What is rarer and much more valuable is space between homes. In any of the surrounding towns that have allowed this kind of development, property values are much lower. Our residents worked hard to earn their homes. Commission, you owe it to them to protect their property values. That’s why you were elected.

    During the meeting of February 26th, someone foolishly suggested that it was not a political issue before the Commission. Anything that affects an entire town and upon which a previous election hinged is nothing if it is not a political issue.

    2,379 people, 60% of Bethany’s voting population have signed petitions against this zoning change. Commission Members, let me remind you that most of you owe your seats to Bethany citizens who elected you last spring on this issue and this issue alone. Elections have consequences: The people of Bethany expect you to keep the promises you were elected upon. Bethany citizens, by signing these petitions, are telling the Commission in no uncertain terms that they like Bethany the way it is. They are telling this Commission they are against Bethany becoming a city. They are not merely assuring the Commission that if it involves legal fees, they are authorizing those expenditures. They are DEMANDING the Commission hire the best legal services and draw a line in the sand: Deny this application and defend it in court if necessary.

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