[Vision2020] Just Say "NO" to Jobs and Businesses In Moscow
Joe Campbell
joekc at adelphia.net
Tue Sep 26 18:20:33 PDT 2006
Here is one way to characterize the differences between us when it comes to our attitudes about local businesses, Donovan.
Suppose that we are at the big high school party. You think that Moscow is similar to the girl that has not yet been asked to dance. It is near the end of the evening. She's lonely and desperate and had better dance with the first guy who asks her because he might be the last!
I think that Moscow is the Prom Queen and she's just arrived at the party. She's intelligent, self-assured, and a real knockout. She can dance with anyone. She can afford to be choosy.
(I admit that the above example is sexist. Substitute 'boy' and 'star quarterback' where appropriate. Be sure to change the pronouns, too!)
Best, Joe
---- Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:
=============
I am in full agreement with MCA on this. I am tired of businesses coming into Moscow and creating jobs, raising wages, and providing opportunities for the people here.
This 16 page regulatory document will send a clear message to businesses like Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Schweitzer, Micron, and other institutions that provide wages to the residents in the area that we don't want them here.
Establishing 16 pages of new and "special" laws and regulations for some business that provide a high number of jobs, we will assure victory over the people that want jobs and to pay less property taxes. Whitman County is where these business people will have to give their taxes and create jobs.
YEAH MCA! I am with you. Stop business from coming here to Moscow and Latah, we already have enough good paying jobs at least $5.15 an hour.
Best,
_DJA
PS, I hope you know I was being sarcastic, there is always one in the crowd.
Bill London <london at moscow.com> wrote: Dear County Commissioners Kimmell, Nelson and Stroschein:
The Moscow Civic Association (“MCA”) is in favor of Latah County adopting Moscow’s Large Scale Retail Ordinance (“LSRO”) for the Area of City Impact.
The LSRO was written by a team of community members with the goal of mitigating negative impacts that retail outlets 40,000 square feet or larger (“Big Box Stores”) would likely bring to our growing community. Retail outlets of this size are cropping up all over the country with a variety of consequences involving traffic, noise, storm water, aesthetics, etc. Communities across the country are recognizing the need to pass ordinances to eliminate or mitigate the adverse impacts of Big Box Stores. For this reason, the MCA supported the city’s efforts to mitigate these problems by adopting the LSRO.
Planning and zoning are reasonable and desirable activities of local governing bodies. We do not endorse the view that ordinances placing reasonable requirements on businesses represent an assault on the free market or discourage beneficial development. We believe that the LSRO regulates development wisely, in a community-friendly and beneficial manner that protects the property rights of developers, adjacent landowners and the surrounding community. We wish to encourage this type of development.
We believe it is not only justifiable but necessary in our role as responsible citizens and as community participants placing reasonable requirements on retail establishments larger than 40,000 square feet. To mitigate the adverse spillover effects that come with great size is an absolutely appropriate protection of the property rights of the surrounding landowners and community. We believe that the LSRO does that adequately by defining large scale retail outlets as conditional uses in the Motor Business zoning district and by placing specific requirements on such establishments to address the following areas of concern:
Site location
Noise
City Services and City infrastructure impacts
Storm water quality
Traffic Impacts
Building abandonment
We agree with the requirements provided by the LSRO.
As stated in the first five and a half pages of the sixteen page document, there are many reasons to adopt such an ordinance. We would like to draw your attention to the following paragraph of the ordinance (p. 5), which highlights the beneficial purpose of the LSRO in protecting the property rights of the nearby property owners and the community itself:
Whereas, the City is currently without design review regulations or any discretionary
review and public hearing process specific to retail establishments in excess of forty
thousand (40,000) square feet which preserve and/or enhance the general appearance
of building design and construction; preserve the historical character and significance of
the community; coordinate onsite vehicular and non-vehicular traffic circulation patterns
within adjacent transportation systems; minimize visual impact; provide for and protect
existing light, air, solar access, and orientation, privacy, views, and vistas by the proper
and efficient location of building sites and design layout; provide adequate usable open
space in a manner appropriate to the development and uses of lands, and protect and
preserve wildlife, stream, natural topography and other desirable natural features and
qualities such as skyline, ridge tops, knoll ridges, established trees and shrub masses,
topsoil, streambeds and banks, drainage swales; promote aesthetic harmonizing with
the environment adjacent to development; enable requirements for traffic studies,
market studies, and impact studies; and enable imposition of mitigation measures;
Without the LSRO in place, the citizens of our community have no protection from the adverse spillover effects that unregulated large retail establishments will bring to nearby neighborhoods, to the detriment of residents’ property values and quality of life. This threat is something we can mitigate through the LSRO while preserving economic opportunity, enhancing property values and quality of life, and protecting and balancing developer’s property rights with those of the impacted neighbors and community.
We hope you will take these comments to heart and pass the LSRO for the Area of City Impact. Please protect and preserve the quality of life for Latah County.
Sincerely,
Bruce Livingston
President, Moscow Civic Association
On Behalf of the Moscow Civic Association Board of Directors
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