The Road to Nowhere - Baldwin County Meeting
There is a very important meeting being held next Tuesday, April 13th at 8.15am:
Work Session of the Baldwin County Commission
Baldwin County Administration Building
Conference Room or County Commission Chambers
322 Courthouse Square
Bay Minette, Alabama
On the agenda is a proposal to start advertising for bids on the development of Woodrow Lane.
As you know, this development is key to the potential commercial development of the Magnolia 9.
The full minutes can be read here... The item of interest to us starts on page 16. (The link seems to switch at random, if it is broken try the Baldwin County page and scroll down to the meeting on April 13th).
I personally won't be able to attend this meeting as I have already taken unpaid leave from work to attend the Daphne meeting on April 12th so if I can ask for some volunteers to attend and provide me with a write up I will update the website after the POA meeting which is also on April 13th. Please leave a comment at the end of this blog entry if you are going to attend.
Two questions that spring to my mind are:
1. What is going to be done about the wetlands? The letter from Tom O'Hara (see below) puts it more eloquently than I could but here is an extract from the Baldwin County map showing the position of the wetlands:
2. If the below zoning map is correct, how can they build a service road through a Rural Agriculture District (at the end of Woodrow Lane).
The following is an extract from a letter sent to the Baldwin County Commissioners from the pen of Tom O'Hara; if there is an opportunity for a public hearing these questions need to be asked, along with any others. Again, leave comments at the end of this blog entry if you have questions for the commissioners that hopefully our representative can ask.
A majority of the residents of TimberCreek subdivision, which has approximately 700 voting households, oppose the County’s continued pursuit of building a service road between Hwy 181 and Hwy 98 along Interstate 10. We ask that you table this project immediately. There is absolutely no justifiable reason to spend County funds to construct a “service road to nowhere” over environmentally sensitive areas that will only line the pockets of developers with frontage property on this tax payer funded road.
First, the carrot that was dangled before the County and the City of Daphne when commiting taxpayer funds to this project was an option on property held by the Mobile Infirmary to construct a hospital. Since acquiring that option, the Infirmary has purchased Thomas Hospital and has allowed its option to expire. My understanding is that The Infirmary has no current plans to build a hospital that would compete with Thomas Hospital. If you have different information, please let me know so I can advise your constituents.
Second, this road will destroy environmentally sensitive wetlands in the D’Olive Creek watershed. This watershed has already experienced substantial degradation which has affected the residents of Lake Forest. Lake Forest, which has many more voting households than TimberCreek, will be negatively affected due to destruction of even more quality wetlands and increased runoff and siltation during and after construction. We plan on meeting with environmentally concerned citizens in Lake Forest shortly. My understanding is that the County has not done an environmental impact study, but rather only a limited environmental assessment. We ask the you instruct your engineers to conduct a full blown environmental impact study before proceeding further with this environmentally sensitive project. I am sure that our City planners and elected officials are equally concerned about these issues.
Finally, Hwy 98, Hwy 31 and Interstate 10 all currently provide east to west corridors for traffic to and from the Eastern Shore Center and the Bass Pro Shop Development. There is absolutely no need for a fourth corridor. The Interstate 10 exchange was originally proposed as a south of I 10 exchange only. Providing another hurricane evacuation route on Hwy 13 from the south is the only part of the interchange project that has ever made sense. I I am advised that the interchange is not the highest priority on ALDOT’s sliding scale of projects to be completed. As a result, the County will have pushed forward with a “road to nowhere” while waiting on ALDOT to proceed if it ever does proceed. Certainly, there must be higher priorities for the County and its expenditure of tax dollars.
It is clear that if the County service road project continues, the Commission will have served solely the interests of an economic windfall to developers with frontage property paid for by our tax dollars at the expense of the environment and the residential quality and character of TimberCreek and Lake Forest. Again, we ask that you table this project unless and until a more justifiable reason for spending tax dollars in these difficult times
To summarize next week's meeting schedule:
Monday, April 12th at 1pm. Daphne City Council.
Tuesday, April 13th at 8.15am. Baldwin County Council.
Tuesday, April 13th at 6pm. POA Board Meeting.
We also made the front page of the Press Register today. Read the story online and don't forget to leave your comments. Also of interest is the story about the widening of Hwy 31.
What else can I do..?
The key to preserving TimberCreek as a residential sub-division is making people aware of the issues and letting our elected representatives know our feelings. Visit all the links below - leave your comments of support and tell us your own story of why you want to live in TimberCreek.
Sign the Petition. Let the Daphne Council and Planning Commission know how many people care about this issue.
Write letters & emails to your representatives and other public figures. Come back soon for a list of contact details and sample letters. If you send an email, copy admin@savetimbercreekgolf.com and we will keep a collection on this web site.
Become a fan on FaceBook. Share your thoughts and pictures with friends neighbors and supporters.
Follow us on Twitter. The other sites may only get updated once every 24-48 hours but if we hear anything new, Twitter will be the first place it gets posted.
View the videos on YouTube and leave comments. Share the videos with everyone in your address book.
Donate. We will need money to obtain legal and real estate documents, we may need to hire a lawyer, some of your neighbors have already spent money on research, printing flyers and of course keeping this web site running. We can't pay volunteers for their time but we can reimburse expenses that are relevant to the objective. A full set of accounts will be made available on request and any money left over will either be returned pro-rata to everyone that donated or will be used for the good of the community as a whole.
Please note, if you use PayPal to donate (by clicking the button below) the payment page will show Southern Traditional Foods as being the recipient. This is my busines account; all donations will be marked Save TimberCreek Golf and will be put in a separate account.
If you prefer to donate by cash or check, please send me an email with your contact details.
Finally, use the buttons below to promote these blog entries on Delicious, Stumble and Digg.
Work Session of the Baldwin County Commission
Baldwin County Administration Building
Conference Room or County Commission Chambers
322 Courthouse Square
Bay Minette, Alabama
On the agenda is a proposal to start advertising for bids on the development of Woodrow Lane.
As you know, this development is key to the potential commercial development of the Magnolia 9.
The full minutes can be read here... The item of interest to us starts on page 16. (The link seems to switch at random, if it is broken try the Baldwin County page and scroll down to the meeting on April 13th).
I personally won't be able to attend this meeting as I have already taken unpaid leave from work to attend the Daphne meeting on April 12th so if I can ask for some volunteers to attend and provide me with a write up I will update the website after the POA meeting which is also on April 13th. Please leave a comment at the end of this blog entry if you are going to attend.
Two questions that spring to my mind are:
1. What is going to be done about the wetlands? The letter from Tom O'Hara (see below) puts it more eloquently than I could but here is an extract from the Baldwin County map showing the position of the wetlands:
2. If the below zoning map is correct, how can they build a service road through a Rural Agriculture District (at the end of Woodrow Lane).
The following is an extract from a letter sent to the Baldwin County Commissioners from the pen of Tom O'Hara; if there is an opportunity for a public hearing these questions need to be asked, along with any others. Again, leave comments at the end of this blog entry if you have questions for the commissioners that hopefully our representative can ask.
A majority of the residents of TimberCreek subdivision, which has approximately 700 voting households, oppose the County’s continued pursuit of building a service road between Hwy 181 and Hwy 98 along Interstate 10. We ask that you table this project immediately. There is absolutely no justifiable reason to spend County funds to construct a “service road to nowhere” over environmentally sensitive areas that will only line the pockets of developers with frontage property on this tax payer funded road.
First, the carrot that was dangled before the County and the City of Daphne when commiting taxpayer funds to this project was an option on property held by the Mobile Infirmary to construct a hospital. Since acquiring that option, the Infirmary has purchased Thomas Hospital and has allowed its option to expire. My understanding is that The Infirmary has no current plans to build a hospital that would compete with Thomas Hospital. If you have different information, please let me know so I can advise your constituents.
Second, this road will destroy environmentally sensitive wetlands in the D’Olive Creek watershed. This watershed has already experienced substantial degradation which has affected the residents of Lake Forest. Lake Forest, which has many more voting households than TimberCreek, will be negatively affected due to destruction of even more quality wetlands and increased runoff and siltation during and after construction. We plan on meeting with environmentally concerned citizens in Lake Forest shortly. My understanding is that the County has not done an environmental impact study, but rather only a limited environmental assessment. We ask the you instruct your engineers to conduct a full blown environmental impact study before proceeding further with this environmentally sensitive project. I am sure that our City planners and elected officials are equally concerned about these issues.
Finally, Hwy 98, Hwy 31 and Interstate 10 all currently provide east to west corridors for traffic to and from the Eastern Shore Center and the Bass Pro Shop Development. There is absolutely no need for a fourth corridor. The Interstate 10 exchange was originally proposed as a south of I 10 exchange only. Providing another hurricane evacuation route on Hwy 13 from the south is the only part of the interchange project that has ever made sense. I I am advised that the interchange is not the highest priority on ALDOT’s sliding scale of projects to be completed. As a result, the County will have pushed forward with a “road to nowhere” while waiting on ALDOT to proceed if it ever does proceed. Certainly, there must be higher priorities for the County and its expenditure of tax dollars.
It is clear that if the County service road project continues, the Commission will have served solely the interests of an economic windfall to developers with frontage property paid for by our tax dollars at the expense of the environment and the residential quality and character of TimberCreek and Lake Forest. Again, we ask that you table this project unless and until a more justifiable reason for spending tax dollars in these difficult times
To summarize next week's meeting schedule:
Monday, April 12th at 1pm. Daphne City Council.
Tuesday, April 13th at 8.15am. Baldwin County Council.
Tuesday, April 13th at 6pm. POA Board Meeting.
We also made the front page of the Press Register today. Read the story online and don't forget to leave your comments. Also of interest is the story about the widening of Hwy 31.
What else can I do..?
The key to preserving TimberCreek as a residential sub-division is making people aware of the issues and letting our elected representatives know our feelings. Visit all the links below - leave your comments of support and tell us your own story of why you want to live in TimberCreek.
Sign the Petition. Let the Daphne Council and Planning Commission know how many people care about this issue.
Write letters & emails to your representatives and other public figures. Come back soon for a list of contact details and sample letters. If you send an email, copy admin@savetimbercreekgolf.com and we will keep a collection on this web site.
Become a fan on FaceBook. Share your thoughts and pictures with friends neighbors and supporters.
Follow us on Twitter. The other sites may only get updated once every 24-48 hours but if we hear anything new, Twitter will be the first place it gets posted.
View the videos on YouTube and leave comments. Share the videos with everyone in your address book.
Donate. We will need money to obtain legal and real estate documents, we may need to hire a lawyer, some of your neighbors have already spent money on research, printing flyers and of course keeping this web site running. We can't pay volunteers for their time but we can reimburse expenses that are relevant to the objective. A full set of accounts will be made available on request and any money left over will either be returned pro-rata to everyone that donated or will be used for the good of the community as a whole.
Please note, if you use PayPal to donate (by clicking the button below) the payment page will show Southern Traditional Foods as being the recipient. This is my busines account; all donations will be marked Save TimberCreek Golf and will be put in a separate account.
If you prefer to donate by cash or check, please send me an email with your contact details.
Finally, use the buttons below to promote these blog entries on Delicious, Stumble and Digg.
I'm flattered with the acceptance of "Road to Nowhere." I thought of it while speaking with Dave Furman after the meeting at the Gathering Place. It was one of those lightening bolt moments. I think we should continue attacking the "Road to Nowhere" and the wetlands issue. One spotlights thriftless spending by the city in a down economy and the other is an environmentalist's dream. Maybe we should make this a Daphne issue, not just a Timbercreek issue. Let’s get folks outside our community talking about wasteful spending of their tax dollars and politicians and not so much about our Golf Course and Property Values. There are those in the county who really wouldn't mind seeing "us" in an uncomfortable situation and won’t care to help, but they will get loud if they find out their money isn’t being spent the way they think it ought to be. Thanks Tom and Ian… you guys are rock stars!
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Good comments Greg, would you like to do a piece for the blog on the subject of county tax dollars?
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Ian,
Sure do. I'll make some calls and do some homework. I'll have something by Tuesday.
R/
Greg
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Have you checked out the new video..?
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