Tonight was a sad and disappointing night for me.

This past January as a new Commissioner I inherited the awful agreement negotiated by the 2010 Township Board of Commissioners. This now dictates and binds the township to the rezoning and criteria allowing a mammoth warehouse development. The 2010 rezoning leading to warehouses obliterated two decades of agriculture protection that defined the western portion of the township. This greatly contributed to what made us such a great place to live and why so many moved here. It represented years of smart growth and planning successes of the past. The agreement erased that.

For 3 years I and others fought this rezoning as residents in every way we could. We walked petitions, donated money, distributed flyers, helped plan fundraisers, attended meetings. But in the end the efforts of these dedicated residents including over 1000 who signed a petition were frustratingly moot.

Tonight, because the prior boards series of decisions from 2010-2013 (including opportunities to correct mistakes) the township is legally bound to adhere to what amounts to as a contract.  Because of this I was in my opinion ethically bound to review the submitted plans by the terms of those agreements. Agreements which are now the law. I do not believe in casting votes to grandstand. And I think to have done so with no real way to overturn the MOU would have been just that. It wouldn’t have affected the outcome.

If there were anyway to overturn the rezoning or any possibility of success I would have pursued it. Legally there was no course.

Those who followed this closely understand the impacts coming. Many even still today who are just learning are shocked. This is now reality. I sincerely believe we’re still a great place to live. The affects of a warehouse development over a mile in size on previously protected farmland in the worse possible location can’t be overstated enough. But this is my hometown. It’s where I’m getting married in a month. Where she and I will raise kids. I guess that’s why I cared so much about this. But now time to move forward. We have got to figure out how. Can’t rest til we do.

The tip of the iceberg, the basic problems are this:

• We now have a large amount of warehouses where they don’t make sense never made sense and with no clear path to the turnpike.
• We have to provide services to those warehouses. We have significantly increased our need for costly local police force which will no doubt lead to tax increases. Fire safety obligations increase. For now we have a volunteer force. But each new development strains that.
• We have tractor trailers through no fault of there own but rather the poor decisions of the past bleeding onto our local roads. This causes safety and quality of life concerns.
• We have lost farmland that was preserved for decades.
• People I know purchased homes, the biggest investment of there lives with an understanding that certain zoning was permanent. Their neighborhood will now forever change in the blink of an eye.

These are some of the problems that need proactive solutions. It is what it is. Tonight I’ll let myself be bummed. But tomorrow eyes forward roll up the sleeves.

My apologies for not writing agenda preview posts the last 2 meetings. Since breaking my hand…. the more word intensive posts take double the time. That coupled with the amount of correspondence we got before the Hamilton Crossings vote, a ramped up wedding season (my day job) and heading down to Washington for a smart growth conference for a few days left very little time for blogging.

Starting yesterday I’ve been able to start typing with both hands again so expect the previews to start up again the first August BOC meeting.

A reminder: Links to past agenda previews can be found here.
Also I try to tag all my posts so the search function works well. If your ever interested in any particular issue just search for it in the search-bar. Of course you can always email at ronbeitler@gmail.com

Next Sunday-Monday I’ll be attending the Smart Growth America Local Leaders Policy Forum in Washington D.C.

Mayors, Councilmembers, Commissioners, agency directors and other officials from around the country will gather for the Local Leaders Policy Forum in Washington, D.C. “Revitalizing Communities” is the theme. The summit will feature interactive seminars on smart growth implementation; feature speakers who are the innovative leaders spearheading community change; and provide strategic networking opportunities with other top leaders.

I will be blogging and tweeting from the forum.

Seminars I’m looking forward to include:

• Smart growth leadership: Politics, message branding and case making
• Bringing back main streets and neighborhood retail (Very relevant to LMT since we are considering a new Neighborhood Commercial zone)
• Managing revitalization in high growth markets. (Allentown!)
• Smart growth:  Taking a triple bottom line approach.

Mike Schlossberg is the State Rep. from the neighboring 132nd district. He writes a blog called “Political Fails: When politics, government and Social Media collide”. As a proponent of politicians using social media, basically he covers the do’s and don’ts. As an elected official who is active on twitter, facebook & my own blog it’s definitely a page on my RSS feed.

This AM he tackled the subject of politicians blogging. Obviously, I blog. And I think its important to do so. I generally agree with his pro’s and con’s. Here are a couple more thoughts…

+’s
 In depth posts +1 – “Twitter and Facebook updates have to be short to get to the point.  There is usually no room for nuance or details in these types of format.” Definitely agree with Mike here. The negatives of T and FB are that often the character limits result in watering down of complicated issues. This leads to posts of a black and white polarizing nature. The main benefit of a blog is it allows me to expand on thoughts. Does this lead to longer posts? Yes. But I think we don’t give voters enough credit for having an attention span to really dig into the nuances of issues. I think my page views and emails they generate reinforce that.

Easy integration +1 – Much of the traffic to my blog is generated from T+FB. If I can pique someones interest with a short post, they then have the option to check out the blog for more. I sort of look at it like this. My blog is a soapbox. Twitter is a megaphone and FB a place to converse. All 3 sort of work in conjunction.

Ill add: I blog so people know what I’m thinking. I think I owe that to the people who vote. But I also blog because it helps me parse out and organize my thoughts on issues. I write a preview of most every BOC meeting. Is it time consuming? Yes. But well worth it. It makes me take the time to be able to write thoughtfully about every issue on an upcoming agenda. In LMT we’re part time Commissioners. My blog + practice of previewing meetings is my prep time. It’s duel purpose.

-‘s

Mikes #1 – Time commitment +1 – “Doing a regular blog entry takes a lot of time, and sometimes it also takes a good chunk of research and editing.” YES. I’m lucky in that owning my business let’s me make my own schedule. This is huge. If it wasnt for this the amount of blogging I do would be tough. I’m also not yet married and have no kids. This is also big. That of course is changing soon. But for now I make the time commitment work since I think its important to do so.

Commenters: “Online commenters are frequently just the worst kinds of people.” – Yes, agreed. Look anywhere and you see it. Anonymous trolls in particular. Mike again is right. Taking the anonymity of comments away is the best way to combat this. I do this by using a comment plug-in that uses FB as a vehicle. The disadvantage is that only ppl with FB accounts can comment. But when weighed with potential for comments to be taken over by trolls its worth it.

End of the day Mikes advice is to blog under two circumstances.
1. Have time to do it. – For now, I do. Once kids are in the picture that may change.
2. Have readership to justify. – I think I do. I average about 125 views with a day good mix of returning and unique. On days I post about hot button topics that number spikes dramatically. All time high is in the 500’s. On slow days it trickles to a couple dozen. Bottom line is no matter how much it helps me think through issues, if no one at all read my blog would I still do it? Doubtful.

I’ll add one more. I just enjoy doing it. I like to blog. I like social media. Its not a burden for me. At my core I’m a policy wonk. I enjoy writing about issues. I enjoy talking to people about issues. Particularly smart growth issues. I expand on that with cross posts on national blogs like smartgrowthforconservatives.com and strongtowns.org. I like writing about and thinking about things I care about therefore blogging is natural fit.