Replies

I see PA House bill 2385 includes the funding mechanism for increased "watershed planning" as well as purchasing the "greenways"...

Here in Centre County PA, the Greenways committee is already hard at work drawing on the county maps all the land they want to open to the public/preserve through the Greenways initiative. They are doing this very quietly, and intend to present a finished plan to the County to adopt. Bill 2385 would provide money to the county to begin purchasing the greenways. While I personally don't think government should own any more land than they already do, my biggest issue is: what will they do about property on the greenways map that the owners aren't willing to sell?

I am concerned about the broad issues of property rights in this country, but with greenways my concern is personal. I am fortunate enough to own some land on a mountain ridge in the county. The Greenways Committee wants to preserve the entire ridge, and has drawn a trail through my land, where I intend to build my home.

As I've heard these people say, what good is a trail if you only have pieces of it that don't connect? They want to use emminent domain in the end to connect the pieces they get from willing/pressured/extorted sellers. I don't intend to sell...

Dear Kay,
In the world of rats and humans, humans don't stand a prayer unless they stand together. Groups have to form in the places where these things are happening. We did manage, through hard work and major digging into the legislative attempts trying to sneak past the light of day, to thwart the creation a landfill near where I live. Mountain hicks aren't always ready to lay down and let government have their way with us. We aren't about to do so now. I am begging for people to help squelch both sets of bills, federal and state. These will keep coming as long as they think we are distracted by the war , ours and the Near East's.
Time to Look Homeward, Sweet Angels.

One of the reasons the Klamath farmers won a few battles is the website Klamathbasincrisis.org. You need to get a site up that focuses on your issue and presents information to people so that they can support you. Its work, but its worth it. The klamath site was getting thousands of visits a day last summer,and they even had live video donated so we could watch the headgates with them. You surely would get visits to your site by mentioning it on freerepublic, and help will come out of the woodwork. You can't do it alone and you can't do it by trying to fix things through the government process. Its already been subverted by the regional councils.