Thursday, March 28, 2024

Hill Street issues

Posted

Issue One - Should LWFR be supported in its current effort to procure 5.5 acres of potentially surplus School District land, in the near term, that is contiguous with LWFR's current Station 93 property on Beaver Valley Road?
When considering this issue please disregard all others' points-of-view and purported facts that may have been directed your way over the past several weeks that may have informed your present opinion on the matter.  Similarly disregard 1) the various charges of misinformation that have been directed by one person or party against another over the same timeframe; and 2) any claims of available information that you have not personally verified.  Make this effort because we, not LWFR, are the stewards of our valuable community property.  The collective decision we make with respect to its disposition will impact not only us, but generations to come.  As such, we have a shared responsibility to ensure that our "votes" on the disposition of this property - yea or nay - are fully informed ones, devoid of unhelpful emotional background noise or unnecessarily reliant on the opinions of others.  It is particularly important in this case since the only point that both sides of the issue seem to agree on is that the subject "surplus" land is indeed a highly valuable community asset.
Here is what I propose:
Step 1.  Pour your morning coffee, grab a muffin, and make tracks to Hill Street.  Stand on Hill Street at a point just east of Laurie's and my house (330 Leonard Lane).  Look across the vacant parcel adjoining the back of our property.  Assess the extent of this property, from Hill Street to the line of trees in the distance, and from our fence line on the left to the roadway on the right.  Now imagine another property of the same size placed immediately adjacent.  This will form in your mind a parcel of 9 acres.  Now imagine the area being slightly smaller (8 acres).  That equals the extent of community property that LWFR would like to control for its future expansion in way of the existing Station 93 site - comprising their existing site plus the new land acquisition.  When I did this mental exercise my immediate reaction was "Man, that's a lot of land!"  To better appreciate it I pulled a scaled drawing of Husky Stadium off the Internet, measured the maximum length and width of the structure, and found that LWFR would have at its disposal a tract of land for its building needs that is approximately 55% of the size of the Husky Stadium footprint.  Feel free to use another method of mentally coming to terms with the subject parcel's size.
Step 2:  While still standing on Hill Street, turn around.  From here, note the open extent and general usage and upkeep condition of the back half of the existing Station 93 property in the distance.  Walk closer if you need to.  Does the area appear "impeccably maintained" rather than "going to weeds?"  [Linda Hiteshaw, in her 30 May Letter to the Editor, noted that the former is the standard at most fire stations, the latter expected at homes of weekend property owners.]  In any case, is the condition and usage in way of residents' view what you would expect of good neighbors having longstanding ownership?  Does the condition inform your view on how the property would be maintained when it grows over three-fold in size?
Step 3:  Confirm that LWFR has plans to make good use of the additional land.  Read LWFR Chief Lamar's statements of intended uses as given on the LWFR.org website and repeated on the front page of the June 6 edition of the Echo.  Track down supporting documents. Establish to your satisfaction whether identified needs justify the commitment of the entire tract of community land to LWFR.
Step 4:  Make your decision on supporting, or not, the transfer of the entire parcel of surplus land to LWFR in the near term, keeping in mind that once the land transfer is complete, there's no going back. Note here that your "vote" on this matter is theoretical, as LWFR intends to buy the property through a funding strategy that does not require a vote by the community. Thus, if you are in favor of LWFR getting the whole parcel, you need do nothing.  If however you do not believe that LWFR should get the whole surplus parcel, at least without more justification and/or a community vote, then go to the following petition site, at which your voice may be heard:  https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/no-civic-center-in-plain.  But in this case expect to see angry and threatening push-back on the site for having made your voice heard, which leads me to the second and even more important community issue.
Issue Two - What is the level of civility that we in the community should expect from our leaders and each other?
I ask you to consider this question in light of my personal witness of disturbing behavior over the past several weeks, indeed months, within our community.  Unfortunately, some of the most disturbing observations are also the most recent, which leads me to call into question whether our civic leaders, and we in the community at large, have the fortitude and commitment to demand an end to it.  
I think, for example, of LWFR Chief Lamar's inclusion, on the LWFR website and again this past week on the front page of the Echo, of purported offensive and inflammatory statements made by specific individuals in the community who do not support his desired appropriation of the subject property.  These statements are included to help support his criticism of a larger segment of the community that has expressed, for various reasons, opposition to LWFR's purchase of the property.  He goes on to imply that Plain residents that truly desire to keep the area rural should take issue with fellow residents that own multiple homes in the area, rent their homes to vacationers, or are involved in businesses that bring people into the valley, as these are the segments of the community causing growth problems.  A more specific negative reference was made to those of us who truly are "neighbors" to the Station 93 fire house, although the reference remains vague enough to make any reader wonder which residents should be considered the offensive ones.  As a retired Coast Guard Commander, I can tell you that throughout my career I have never encountered a service officer who would think to make publically disparaging or inflammatory statements against any members or segments of the local community.  We instead were trained to remain respectful toward ALL citizens, even those on whom we were about to place handcuffs.  Chief Lamar's desire to publicly make clarifying points of LWFR's position relative to the petition site is fine; his apparent need to include public attacks and inflame derision and anger within the community is not.  I am at a loss to explain the behavior.  I hope that our Fire Commissioners are at a loss as well, but I see no evidence of that.
A similar feeling of disbelief arose recently when I began seeing signs in the Plain area requesting support of LWFR that also disparage segments of the community as NIMBYs - all written over a backdrop of the American flag.  Although perfectly legal from a first amendment standpoint, is this really the way we want to treat each other as neighbors?  For those of us that indeed live near the subject property and do not support its sale, it is offensive because it presumes and inaccurately implies that our reasons for non-support are shallow and self-serving.  Moreover, it implies that anyone living in sight of the subject land, by evidence of that simple fact, is not entitled to an opinion.  Is that American?  For all others that oppose the land sale but perhaps live nowhere near the subject property the signage is offensive because it implies that their opinions have no merit as well.  Why?  Because their cause is aligned with a despised group - NIMBYs - and so by association they too are to be despised.  Again, American, really?  And to think that LWFR's battalion chief, for one, exhibits this sentiment in both sign and banner form in front of his home should be offensive to all residents.  I would hope that our Fire Commissioners are shocked as well, but I see no evidence of that.

    Mike Aholt
    Resident, Plain
 

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