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Survey could have saved lawsuit costs
Editor, The Recorder,
Highlanders are concerned about the large sums of taxpayer dollars being spent to defend and promote Mr. McBride's private industrial wind proposal for Allegheny Mountain. They may be surprised and perhaps shocked to find out that these expenses might have been avoided in a very simple way.
Several times before the filing of any lawsuits, the Highland County supervisors were asked to conduct a referendum or a survey of some sort to determine the true wishes of the citizens. "Can't be done, too expensive, no way to verify, etc." were the responses.
Well, as a resident of Patrick County explained to me the other day, there is a very simple and inexpensive way to conduct such a survey. Patrick County did so by mailing the question along with the tax bills - Do you support a tall structures ordinance or not?
In Patrick County the majority does matter, as 73.7 percent responded in favor of a tall structures ordinance to rule out industrial wind development. The supervisors, who had pledged to abide by the results of the survey, kept their word and passed the ordinance.
Some folks may say, but this lets people other than registered voters decide, in that it would include absentee landowners. That would seem to be the fair solution because, at present, one absentee landowner, Mr. McBride, has been given preference over all the others.
So, depending upon who is guessing the number, something over a million dollars may have been spent on the legal dispute over this private industrial project. Probably over one-quarter of that has been taxpayer money used by the supervisors to fight their own citizens and constituents.
Just think how a small fraction of that money would have been required to send out one piece of paper with tax notices and then pay an independent firm to tabulate the results!
In all likelihood, even that much could have been raised privately and thus not have cost a single taxpayer dollar.
Rich Holman Monterey, Va.
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