How much is Enough

I am sick and tired of the attitudes of people like Mr. Steffan and the rest of the like minded individuals at Quality Quest. They seem to claim that they and they alone are the only ones that care about the environment, and that builders and developers are Satan incarnate with their continued desire to build houses for people to live in. I must ask them where they live, because I am tempted to believe that they live in tents, eat berries and walk everywhere they go. They can’t live in a house, or shop at stores or drive a car, it’s bad for the environment. The same people that Mr. Steffan sought out to destroy in his letter last week are the same type of people that build houses, cars and grocery stores. They are tax paying citizens who have the constitutional right to do with their land what the law will permit, and the law doesn’t permit much.

Some of Mr. Steffan’s quotes were highly insulting and beyond ludicrous:

“.. .self serving opportunists who are attempting to bend public policy for their own private economic agenda”. This sounds a little hypocritical seeing that a law was changed

to benefit the Environmental Conservation Commission who has direct ties to Quality Quest. The continued removal of land from the tax base, might be good for the green spacers, but it is a drag on the local economy. So who is taking the taxpayers on the ride to economic ruin? Building homes adds to the tax base, buying land hurts the taxpayer in two ways. Number one: the use of tax money to purchase land and Number two: the removal of prime land off the tax roles.

The Trust and Agency account is the pressing point here. The law that was changed is how the money is spent in this account. Currently the way the law reads benefits the green spacers, and is a burden to the taxpayers. Money that should be spent on recreation, is being used to further the agenda of Quality Quest, by buying up land to be put aside for green space. So if they want to accuse anyone of taking the taxpayers on a ride to economic ruin, all they have to do is look in the mirror. So to answer your question “who are the real conservatives?” I am!

I’m all for preserving green space, but you’ve gone overboard.

Rus Thompson

May 29, 2000