Here's a letter sent that presents valid concerns with a suggested course of action--excellent!
Commissioners:
Flat Rock has been a peaceful quite [sic] village for more than 200 years; a refuge from illness, heat, and the stress of city life along the coast. It still attracts people for rest, relaxation, and recovery. The curving road along the Highland Lake Golf course is one of the main 'gateways' to Flat Rock. It is inviting because of its beauty and quietude.
A raucous noisy chaotic sports complex will ruin the historic ambiance and beauty of that 'gateway' into Flat Rock and will change the first impression of the village forever. That alone should cause pause to installation of the sports complex that it being forced into the quite [sic] neighborhoods bordering it.
Below are some of the flaws of the project:
- This sports complex installation is the wrong time in a severe economic down turn
- The wrong place because of proximity to existing quiet neighborhoods
- The wrong place because a better location is in Fletcher which the Soccer Association leased in 2009
- The wrong way because the legally required public hearings, have not to this day, been conducted
- The wrong way because there is the appearance of granting contracts without competitive bids
- The wrong way because the planning appears to have been hurried or non-existent - no traffic study for example
- The traffic, light, noise, trash, and confusion will surely lower the real estate values of the neighboring communities
I respectively ask you to reconsider this project and cancel it. If the land is such a good bargain maybe the county should buy it and run it as a golf course. As far as the quality of life and property values there is nothing worse than a major sports complex shoehorned into the established neighborhoods.
Sincerely,
Ronald Macklem
That letter is outstanding!
ReplyDeleteHere was mine:
To the Henderson County Commission and other interested parties:
I have submitted a document for your immediate consideration. I believe you should withdraw support for the ill-conceived soccer complex proposal and instead put in artificial turf at high school athletic fields, provided they are truly rented out on weekends and summertime for all sports.
This soccer complex is not $1.15 million. Over 10 years it could cost taxpayers $2.3 MILLION at least! We will lose at least $55,000 in county property tax revenue over 10 years.
It is not responsible to propose a 10-yar bond without other costs factored in.
My document also shows pictures of the horrible field at East Henderson, how high school football attendance dwarfs soccer attendance, and how bad the ignored track at Hendersonville High is.
I also discuss how Fletcher was "left at the altar" by the soccer community and that XCel Sportsplex in Fletcher is expanding their own recreation center without any public grants or even public loans.
For that $2.3 million, it would be a better investment to put in artificial turf at the high schools instead!
We CAN'T do both! That is what I've been trying to say for the better part of 12 years!
Copies of the HCSA's own proposal can be found here: http://www.wncsport.com/HighlandLakeGolfDraft.pdf
Copies of my proposal can be found here as well as attached: http://www.wncsport.com/AllSportsGreaterThanOneSportByDennisJustice.pdf
PLEASE do the right thing for all taxpayers and withdraw this proposal immediately.
90% of something for all sides is better than 100% of nothing for all sides.
ALL SPORTS > ONE SPORT
Thank you.
Dennis Justice
www.hendersoncountyturf.com