Sunday, July 27, 2008
Catherine Johnson in the Courant on the Army Reserve Training Center
On Sunday morning, in the Commentary section, the Hartford Courant published a piece by noted Middletown architect, city planning expert, Zoning Board commissioner and candidate for the state legislature, Catherine Johnson, on the proposed Army Reserve Training Center.
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5 comments:
This is just too smart to have any chance of success. Unfortunately, it is not only the Army Corps of Engineers that has not gotten the message about smart growth. Middletown's City leadership has taken an anti-smart growth stance, welcoming the Army as part of its tunnel-visioned, sprawl proliferating, open-space destroying partner in stupid growth. Most recently the City , not-surprisingly, will join residents trying to repel the tax-exempt Army's choice of a site in the vaunted Industrial Zone in the I91 Corridor. It is definitely a bad site as it gobbles up valuable, potentially revenue producing acres as well as destroying a little old farm full of wetlands. But instead if giving the Army marching orders to New Britain, the City invites the Army build a road to facilitate the massacre Middletown's Last Great Place in Maromas. Please, Governor M. Jodi Rell, get involved. Listen to Catherine Johnson, the only person smart enough to suggest sanity and smart growth in Middletown.
Jasper Cane
Would the major and common council have the courage to ask the citizens of Middletown to vote in a referendum on whether the Army should build its military base in our town? Four years ago, the citizens of Middletown were asked to vote on whether a high school for its children should be built on land that many considered to be unsuitable. It was resoundingly defeated. How would the citizens vote on a military base with a huge drain on the town budget, such a high environmental destruction of pristine land, a loss of safety for its residents, and a contradiction of the legislative intent of both Middletown and the US Congress?
If this army base were put to a referendum in Middletown, it would be resoundingly defeated because of the economic costs, the environmental destruction, the costs in safety to the residents, and the clear contradiction with the goal of the legislation. This Army Base is a regional facility whose siting should be a regional issue. The Army needs the best site in the region, not a compromised site in Middletown that almost all of the city's residents are opposed to.
It is ridiculous how people are saying that this shouldn't be built on a farm or pristine land. The place is zoned industrial. If some plastic injection factory with more employees than the Army, was going to build on the site the city would be giving it tax incentives, water and sewer. What is really going on here? It’s anti-Army bias. This is not a mental hospital or a prison. This is a facility that is a part of the basis of national security of the country.
"What is really going on here? It’s anti-Army bias. This is not a mental hospital or a prison. This is a facility that is a part of the basis of national security of the country."
Anti army my ass... build it in YOUR backyard then...
The Army does not answer to the City of Middletown. No matter how many referenda or resolutions are invoked, they do not apply to the Army. The Army will listen and take the expression of the will of the City and Citizens into consideration but is under no obligation to respond in any way other than to forward its mission to implement BRAC 2005 and establish an AFRC in the City of Middletown. This obduracy is neither logical or smart from a civilian point of view especially be cause it hampers the Army in finding the best location in a locale that would welcome their presence. I am disappointed that Middletown did not send the Army packing immediately when it came to seize/buy 40 acres of non-existent property in a "greenfield." Instead, the City tried to be helpful, touting the intangible economic benefits that a tax-exempt facility would bestow. Now, I can not help but speculate that the Army's Welcome Wagon was some how hitched to the Closure and Transfer (for free) to the City of its 30 acre Mile Lane Site near the new High School. Even worse than this unsavory suspicion, is the equally likely possibility of endemic incompetence in Middletown's City government.
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