First do no harm forgotten by Highland board
Editor, The Recorder,
Jerry and Lee, repeat after me: Primum non nocere! Primum non nocere! Since you have demonstrated that you are all-seeing and all-knowing, surely you already know what this means, so we dont have to translate it for you. You have also demonstrated that you dont need or value the opinions of your tax-paying constituents, having superior knowledge of whats good for us poor naive simpletons. Still, it is amusing that the board would choose to reach its decision on Bastille Day. Marie Antoinette held a similarly patronizing view of her subjects, summed up in the famous phrase, Let them eat cake!
You voted for permanently scarring the western vistas of countless landowners, not just up close on the mountain, but all up and down the Blue Grass Valley, recognized as one of the most scenic vistas in the county indeed, in Virginia. You voted in favor of this despite an unprecedented outpouring of opposition in the form of petitions, public statements in this paper and heartfelt testimony at public hearings. The sheer number of taxpayers in opposition, compared to those who had no objection to, or were in favor of proceeding with the project in question, clearly indicated that you, as the duly elected representatives of the public will, should have simply turned down this application. Thus have you abrogated the trust placed in you as representatives of the public will. Surely there can be no claim that your votes were cast in accordance with the clearly expressed will of the majority of the constituents that you supposedly represent? The public record does not seem to support such a claim.
We are not from here, we just thought that we seemed to belong here, more than anywhere else we have been our whole lives. Thirty years of enduring the thoughtlessness and arrogance of self-serving power-mad politicians in Northern Virginia and Washington D.C. drove us to seek out a place where people were just plain honest, hard working, God-fearing folks, whose word was their bond and who didnt have any hidden agendas. We stumbled upon this place, met and count as our friends a wonderful community of people whose values we respect and share, and have carved out a homeplace where we fully intend to live out our days. Over time we have been amazed at the collegiality of discourse here, and how friends with widely differing views can frankly air their differences and then sit down and break bread together. Although we have lived in Northern Virginia for well over 30 years, we count more true friends here, a place that we are so far only able to frequent on weekends and the occasional holiday, than there. Even our Church home is here.
When we bought our property here and considered how to make it our homeplace, our overriding dictum was to leave so slight a footprint on the land that our neighbors would be able to enjoy their viewshed unimpeded, almost as if we had never been there. We did not build a palace on the brow of our hill. We have no mercury lamps blazing away uselessly into the night. We took the wise counsel of our neighbors into account and have benefited immensely from their wisdom for well over a decade. When we built our home in Hightown, it was done on a handshake. No fancy contract and not a single problem. Just a place that we, and the builders who became friends, are proud of to this day. The example of our neighbors inspired us to try to be good stewards of the land so that those who come behind us will know that they, too, are in a special place.
Like so many other landowners and taxpayers in the county, we do not live here full-time and cannot vote here. Indeed, it would not surprise us to discover that a significant percentage of the current county revenue stream flows directly from non-resident taxpayers to whom those who supposedly represent their interests are not obliged to answer! Yet, until recently, it appeared that the honest values, so sensibly displayed by so many of our full-time resident neighbors and friends, were also the driving values of their elected representatives. Up until now we have been content to place the manifestation of our life savings in the presumably capable hands of those whom they saw fit to elect, even reveling in the most unusual, yet democratic means by which they are elected.
It is the ultimate expression of trust to voluntarily submit to taxation without representation, yet so many of us have done this here because of the overwhelmingly demonstrated desire of the present generations of Highlanders to nurture and preserve their birthright.
Of course, nothing lasts forever. That trust has been brutally violated, and we have been rudely awakened to the startling fact that we have two genuine Northern Virginia any development at any cost, because the public doesnt know whats good for it politicians right here in our midst! Lord knows that we have been exposed to enough of this particular species of politician in Northern Virginia and across the river in Washington, D.C. to be able to recognize another pair when we see them. Politicians so full of themselves and their position that it is no longer either convenient or necessary to pay the least bit of attention to the people who put them there. Funny thing about those people though: Theyre neither docile nor stupid, as many an ex-politician discovers in hindsight.
Our supervisors see a county in distress, hemorrhaging its youth and its workforce, with no meaningful employment opportunities, no tax-base and no economic engine. There is so much beauty all around them every day that they dont even notice how unique it is. Beauty is worthless you cant tax beauty. A stunning vista and star filled night skies have no lasting value if they generate no lasting revenue. They do not seem to see what those of us who have come here, or come back here, see all around us: A close-knit vibrant community of proud resourceful people that is fully capable of fending for itself. When someone is in trouble, a neighbor or church or service organization is there to help. When a medical center was needed, the community made it a reality; when a community center was needed, the community stepped up. When a resident with no medical insurance needed a life-saving operation, the community made it happen. When a neighbors son passed, the whole county gathered around in support. Try as one might, one is hard-pressed to observe homeless people hanging out on every street corner in town, drive-by shootings at the school, or car-jackings at all hours of the day and night. A community in distress? We dont think so! We see a proud community of folks who make lemonade out of their lemons instead of letting them go to waste because they taste sour. And then the whole community pitches in and holds a lemonade festival and 50,000 people come!
Yes, there are many who have to commute for an hour or more to their jobs, but when they commute home it is to Gods country, where every cresting view is enough to gladden the heart. When we commute for over an hour to our jobs in Northern Virginia, it is to travel no more than the distance from Monterey to McDowell! The smog, endless taillights, rows upon rows of townhouses, and standing room only Metro trains certainly do not gladden the heart! They are simply the cross we have to bear in order to be able to afford to spend our quality time in Highland County. Jerry and Lee, spend 30 years in our shoes, or in the shoes of the countless native Highlanders who have left the county for careers elsewhere, only to return to the timeless healing cradle of their birth. Stand in those shoes and watch helplessly as countless wonderful places are destroyed by mindless development. Know from all this how grateful we all have been that Highland has so far escaped this fate. Then you might begin to appreciate how truly appalling is the prospect of the piecemeal ruination of one of the last pristine places not under direct government control east of the Mississippi.
Having followed closely the official actions of our Highland supervisors for over a decade, one thing has recently become abundantly clear: Using the same convoluted methods and reasoning as have been exhibited by a majority of our supervisors in several of its more recent decisions, it would be no stretch to imagine their approving developing the North Rim of the Grand Canyon with lines of 400-ft. wind-power towers if they had the jurisdiction! After all it is just a useless ridge-top and nobody important lives anywhere near there! Lining our precious mountain ridges with 400 ft wind-power towers will do nothing about making family farms here more sustainable. They will do nothing to enhance employment prospects or make Highland County the kind of place to which our children will want to come home after a successful career. An impressive rank of three-armed sentries will not protect our property rights or property values. What a way to squander the birthright handed down to you by generations of Highlanders, and that of your children for generations to come! They will become a lasting monument to taxation without representation.
Every year we hear about how frugal our supervisors are with the revenues available and how hard it is to deal with unfunded government mandates and unfair revenue sharing formulas. So do you have a defense fund already set aside to pay for the countys litigation expenses arising from this misadventure? Or are all of us taxpayers (voting and non-voting) now just going to have to mindlessly accept having to foot the bill for it? The irony of this is simply delicious: Many taxpayers will undoubtedly contribute to the litigations against the county and then be billed through their undoubtedly increased taxes for the countys defense of the litigations!
Our supervisors have misdiagnosed Highland as an ailing county, and now a couple of them seem to see themselves as reincarnations of Marcus Welby, prescribing just the right combination of folksy wisdom and tough medicine to a grateful, wondering patient. The fact that they appear to have taken their treatment advice directly from the drug company that stands to make all the profit from the treatment doesnt seem to faze them in the least! Do the self-taught physicians who suddenly know so much better how to heal their patient than the specialists called in for a second opinion have malpractice insurance? Jerry and Lee, repeat after me: Primum non nocere! Primum non nocere! You want to play doctor? Then remember the first rule of medicine, handed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. You are all-seeing and all knowing, how is it that you have forgotten to First, do no harm!
Mike and Lucia Hughes
Hightown and Alexandria, Va.
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