Thursday, March 7, 2024

Deplorable Denocracy

I attended a meeting of the Canyon County Planning Commission this evening. 

Why?  A developer wants a big parcel rezoned from agricultural to R3 (three homes per acre).  This is contrary to the County's Master Plan and directly contrary to the Canyon County Zoning Ordinance.  The roads leading to this 500+ home development are two lane and sometimes suffering from cattle and sheep problems.  These roads are already pretty busy as this area has grown, with the occasional gruesome traffic accidents. Construction trucks are already a problem because they sometimes jackknife making the turn from highway 44 to Lansing Drive.

So, the developer and what were obviously but not openly his employees spoke first, about eight witnesses only one from Canyon County.

Then many dozens of opponents spoke.  Who would have known what skilled researchers and eloquent speakers a bunch of farmers can be?

"On p. 510 of the Middleton Memorandum of Understanding" one speaker identified what was a curious and suspicious sentence.  Another farmer explained how she and her parents for "entertainment" would spend winters watching cars attempting to climb Lansing's hill.  (It is pretty steep and when semis try to haul building materials in, it will be similarly entertaining or perhaps terrifying.)

I think the Planning Commission got the message and they were asking good questions.

They may be deplorables wearing baseball gaps, worn blue jeans, and ZZ Top beards but the local schools clearly accomplished something.

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