Who Are We?

Last night at a very lengthy and again contentious meeting, the citizens of our county could not agree on a Resolution which expressed the Commission's (and thus county's) concern that hydrofracture drilling, if it were to come to the county, represented a threat to water quality and thus to our lives and our established economic base of tourism, farming and timber.
This to me represents the single biggest problem we have has a County and that is we are unable to find and stand behind a common vision of who we are as a group. This inability to find a common denominator plagued us when we attempted to talk about planning and even at the most basic level of making a statement in support of clean water we find ourselves tongue tied. So I am going to send a letter to everyone who opposed the Resolution and ask them to write their version of support for clean water. All opponents said in effect "I want clean water, but I oppose this Resolution". So I will challenge them to come forward with their language so that there may yet be found one thing we can all believe in. As a County we must have a flag of common belief in our march into the future. We must determine who we are. We must find a shared belief.

I suggest you put a deadline on that letter, a short one. Otherwise we all know this is a just a delaying tactic to further embolden a few 19th century bullies who get their way with little effort, thought or care about their neighbors or descendents.

And they won't come forward. They won't do it. They will laugh some more at you and deride everybody else because now they, with a schoolyard mentality, will continue to think that ignorance is bliss, that cooperation is a sign of weakness and that might is right.

Foolish.

And you deride the writ of hundreds of residents who trusted you to read their desires and carry them out. All 750 of them should also get a letter to be told what you did. Shame on you.

Dear Egad: Yes shame on me that I can not dictate and solve this issue. I am a bone fide "tree hugger". I am the only living person in the county to have donated their property to the farm land protection program. I need not defend myself on my environmental credentials. First, this matter is not over. Second, the timing of presenting this resolution after such a flush of hostility at the ordinance was ill advised by Mr. Fleming. Third, no action by the Commission can stop any drilling if it were to occur; so action is really a form of education which we continue to do every single day. So if shaming me is a comfort, then ok. But I have not changed one drop in my position. I am just being realistic. If we go to the death on this issue (in the face of geology which tells us it may be totally unnecessary) do we not run the risk of silencing the Commission in the future and crippling every good act we might then still have.

Martin: You may not be able to enforce an ethos on the community but you can stand up for one. You stood up prior to the public discussion on the resolution and in a no uncertain terms told us where you stood. You approved of the resolution, you thought it was the right thing to do; I was proud of you. Then after the public discussion you caved to the 'business' interests. You let the voices of 750 petition signers, themselves farmers and business owners, be overridden. You allowed your concern for clean water to get flushed down the toilet by loud voices that said 'I care about clean water too but if I want to frack it up and your water too, you can't tell me otherwise.'
You say a 2-1 vote for a resolution would not send a strong signal to Charleston about our opposition to fracking. The vote you took last night sends a very strong signal to the energy industry and Charleston that fracking is welcome in Pocahontas County. Drill here baby drill here.