 |
| Some residents and the HOA at Lake Charlene appear to be at odds over a stormwater project. And the PNJ blames the Board of County Commissioners for this.........?? |
About 4 months ago I had a meeting with county engineer Joy Jones. She requested the meeting.
The subject was a stormwater project at Lake Charlene in District 2.
Knowing what I know about our county's challenges--I know traffic/roads/bridges and stormwater are our biggest infrastructure issues--- I thought it would be a "no-brainer."
She hinted to me at this meeting there could be opposition from some residents but that she felt it was a good project.
Fast forward to the meeting where the subject of the .11 acre piece of land in Lake Charlene was before the board---and we were inundated with speakers that said NO WAY to the project and HELL NO to the eminent domain taking of the portion of land necessary to pursue this project. In fact, at this meeting, not ONE (1) resident showed up to voice support for this project. Not one.
And at that meeting a motion was made by D2 to take the land via eminent domain---- and that motion died for lack of a second. End of story. or so we thought....
Between that meeting and this past Thursday's meeting--I received a few emails here and there about this project. Most seemed to be in favor of the project.
And then at our most recent meeting, the crowd that showed up WANTED the project---but they failed to have the HOA president sign the county easement necessary for us to do the work.
Commissioner Barry rightly summed it up when he said "Why is this on the agenda?" He was right--this had no place on the agenda because the HOA and the homeowners were not on the same page.
This project's lack of progress was nobody's fault but the residents and that district's commissioner. The rest of us were simply standing by to cast votes if everyone could manage to get it together. But they couldn't, and they didn't. End of story, right?
No.
So now we get an ill-informed opinion piece laying the blame for this at the feet of the Board of County Commissioners---when in fact we were the ones that were standing by to move this forward!
All the other players in this issue were the ones NOT ready to move, not ready for primetime.
Somewhat amusing how the media takes pieces of an issue and rams them together to make an editorial with the intention of slinging mud at the BCC. Amusing because it totally and completely missed the mark and people aware of this issue know it.
The opinion piece published by the PNJ’s editorial board was a very unfortunate complication to the resolution of the Lake Charlene stormwater challenges, introducing the factor of personality politics and then escalating that notion to the utmost. Some of the people concerned about this particular stormwater design have been trying to partner with the County for years now, with a goal of arriving at an effective solution on how to prevent the future flooding of Lake Charlene residences at the same time the lake receives unfiltered County stormwater run-off from 9 different entry points. This was never about personal politics. I certainly hope the PNJ’s ill-thought and inaccurate piece, which demonstrates a shocking ignorance of BOCC procedure, fails at its mission to paint it that way.
ReplyDeleteI have been accused by Commissioner Underhill of inserting my voice into the discussion simply because I am obsessed with fighting any of his projects. Perhaps if those of us working to offset his mismanagement of D2 had the time and wherewithal to put eyes and voices on all of his initiatives, we wouldn’t have so many failures, and so much neglect, in our district. As it stands, citizen advocates against lousy, neglected, or killed projects in D2 certainly didn’t have to go running to Lake Charlene for yet another battle.
I personally became involved not just because I have people who are dear to me living in that neighborhood. The bigger issue is the absolute crisis of transparency that is shot through every project in D2.
It is crucial that Lake Charlene have *all* the information about the cost-benefit of the proposed project, so that they can carefully consider whether they think the possible benefits of the project outweigh the potential risks.
The County has performed a piezometric study on Lake Charlene that indicates that this project will drop the level of the lake by a certain amount of inches and it will stabilize there. Perhaps this will be the outcome.
But many people, both lay citizens and independent environmentalists, are scratching their heads at how a man-made lake is magically going to maintain a certain level, once the control is taken away. How can that be?
Lake Charlene residents need to know that the outcome of this project is uncertain. It could even result, during times of drought, in the lake dwindling into nothing but a shallow, stagnant pool of rank, sediment filled County stormwater. Please understand I’m not saying anybody knows for certain this will happen. It’s simply a possibility, one that may result in the need for a further intervention, such as planting cypress trees or some other method of offsetting the ecological damage.
If all of the Lake Charlene HOA residents are fully informed of the risks, and 2/3 decide those risks are worth their belief that this project will keep their homes from flooding—and Commissioner Underhill freely admits that the proposed project won’t protect *all* the homes in that neighborhood—then they can vote to secure the project knowing full well what might come in the future. That’s democracy.
Instead, what our community is witnessing is what we have seen in D2 so many times before—a divide and conquer strategy including a full-on social media smear campaign of those who don’t agree with Commissioner Underhill’s opinion.
Perhaps the PNJ would be better served to take a much closer look than they’ve been willing to give on Commissioner Underhill’s utter refusal to keep his constituents properly informed, right down to ignoring public records requests for weeks on end and using Facebook’s “hide” function on his public D2 Facebook page, so some citizens are blocked from seeing other citizens’ comments.
I won’t hold my breath for the anonymous author/s of this misguided hit job on the Board to turn a serious investigative eye on those matters, given that the behavior has been running rampant for 4+ years now, with the horrible Lake Charlene debacle being only the most recent result.
Sincerely,
Melissa Pino
413 SE Baublits Drive
yep saw that when it hit. "Wrote what a peace of garbage it was", they took it down for a while and people still buy into PNJ and D2,,Beats all I have ever seen..well no actually Century politics and the ineffectiveness of taking care of the sawmill being allowed to stay in a neighborhood and the owners hide out and David Morgans b/s with the budget 2017 is pretty good too.
ReplyDeleteIf you want D1 next term you better get on it. I wouldn't be surprised if D2 paid for that PNJ slop to try to slide in his assistant to a slot in D1.