To the editor:

On her way to shutting down the public debate over development at Sixth and Folks Road Tuesday, Mayor Hack began by admonishing us for “inappropriateness” and warning us to stick to the subject.

The subject was whether to give the developer two more months to squeeze in too much housing where it doesn’t belong. The subject should have been land use and how development should follow zoning, but the deferral was granted and the public was silenced.

The mayor hopes to “facilitate discussion” even though her mind was obviously made up in April when the plans were unveiled. She said then, “It’s going to happen.” It was pointed out that the developer’s vision for our single-family neighborhood was based on a lot of assumptions and that the land was still zoned agricultural. She said that was debatable. Not exactly my kind of arbiter.

So we’ll meet and we’ll talk in some forum other than the public one. We’ll be the polite, respectful citizens we have always been. I hope we are spared more assaults on our credibility with unneeded instructions about our manners.

We’ll be pressured to compromise, which implies legitimate claims on both sides. The property should be zoned single-family as was always intended, and impartial government should protect us. Those are our claims. On the other side, the developer seeks profit. We don’t begrudge him that, but it is not the government’s place to maximize his profit with improper zoning when the only reason to do so is that the developer desires it.

Walter Emerson,
Lawrence