. . . But not in my Backyard

    Tuesday, 20 July 2004 - "My daddy's a lawyer and we can do what we d*** well please". That is indicative of the atmosphere we are dealing with.

    Let's go back a bit. All we did was hold off the inevitable but at least we could say we did all we could. The beautiful wooded 40-acres with a large pond in our backyard were to be leveled and a Wal-Mart Super Center accompanied with the usual shopping center stores took the place of the green pastures.

Dump truck running with little regard to his responsibility to the neighbors.

   Our neighborhood was able to hold them up in court for about a year but now the encroachment was coming back with a vengeance. Good ole boy politics and our lawyer who now will not answer our calls set the stage for the next blow against our peaceful neighborhood. There was written in the initial settlement with Wal-Mart a 300' buffer zone between their super center and our homes. This was done away with when one of our neighbors sold out and reaped an undisclosed settlement. This woman, who said she represented us, recently purchased a $300,000+ home north of town on a quiet lake. In place of the original buffer is a 10' strip sporting a short plastic fence, tall grass and a few bushes. All of this came about without our being notified.   To make matters worse, the promised buffer zone from before was sold by Wal-Mart to the developer. We found out a few weeks ago that a 35,000 square foot, 38' tall 10-theater cinema (243Kb Acrobat file) is to be built just 48 feet from our property line. (Numbers are from memory and may be off a little) Acceptance of the new building passed the city property commission without any acknowledgement of the audience even though there were three of us ready to object when our turn came. The developer with his lawyers made themselves quite obvious sitting just a few rows back from the front. We were eventually heard but quickly told that the vote had already passed and the board sympathized with us.

   Many promises have been made to simply pacify and then quickly broken. What our neighborhood sees as a one-sided partnership between the city government and the developer is dismissed with a lot of rhetoric and legal terminology from well-practiced local lawyers. We have sought representation for our case locally and statewide only to be told that either there was a conflict of interest or it isn't worth the law firms' time.

Bulldozer stirring up dust.

   Monday, July 20th we were dusted continuously by dump trucks and a bull dozer just west of our backyard. Prevailing winds pushed the dust all over our neighborhood. Requirements are that a water truck is to keep the dust down but was not available since the city did not place a meter on the fire hydrant. Work went on despite this requirement. Below are a few photographs of the activity and the result of our home being invaded by the dust storm. Spoke to Larry Kirkland of T & K Construction (235 County Road 1242, Vinemont, AL, 256 734-6611) who said they were responsible for bringing in the equipment to prepare the site for the theatre and parking lot. Mayor Green promised to protect our neighborhood and was obviously not aware of this problem.

A truck passes by without regard to any of the neighbors.

   After exploring all the avenues we can find and wasting a lot of precious time and money, we turn to you and hope you can help us make some positive progress in being taken serious and well represented in our goal of an equitable compromise between the two parties.

Five seconds later, we are living in a cloud.	Ten seconds later as the dust passes.

   We're hoping to find a reasonable solution to keeping our neighborhood intact and not become another victim of the Wal-Mart cancer that occurs every ten years in this town when they vacate and move to a larger building leaving the others empty. We hope our city will seek wisdom from its earlier mistakes and look beyond the revenue toward the secure roots of our community.    Mr. Drinkard, the developer, was quoted as saying, "This is a place anyone would love to live". Think I should invite him over this evening for a mint julep to watch his construction under our old crab apple tree?
 

   Wednesday, 21 July 2004    Next >>

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