Greene County Comprehensive Plan Meeting Statement, Aug 28, 2008
My name is Otis Russell. I represent Greene County for Property Rights, a group of Greene County residents formed in response to a threat to the property rights and freedoms of landowners, renters, and business owners alike. We are an issue only interest group and are not affiliated with any political party or other organization. We welcome all citizens of either party or independents as members in our group with freedom as a common interest. We believe in the full and free use and enjoyment of our property, which we own, and that such use should be free from interference, threat, or control from anyone and especially control in any form by the government. We believe that except for violating criminal laws or posing a public health hazard, that this is the right of all property owners. We will not compromise our freedoms for perceived or promised gains, for fear of our neighbors, or for the narrow or imaginary objectives of others.
We are here now because the Greene County Economic Development Corporation, a private non-profit business interest group, contracted by your elected officials and supported by your tax dollars is now and has been lobbying your elected officials to impose land use planning and controls or zoning in Greene County, a sad fate already suffered by so many of our neighbor counties. The GCEDC and its hired consultant is currently completing a planning study, which will become the legal foundation for ordinances, that will take away your property rights forever if they are passed. The public should be outraged that their own money has been spent to deprive them of their rights. Demand that your elected officials end their association with this group and put an end to their activities. Join us; help oppose this action and the unjustified, unnecessary, and unwanted actions that will follow it.
The GCEDC though, is not the real problem; they are just the hired help. There are only 10 people in this county who bring this problem to you. There are 7 County Council members who voted to give the GCEDC $120,000 in 2008. $60,000 of that was your local tax money; no wonder your property taxes are high. The rest came from grant sources. The GCEDC also was contracted by 3 County Commissioners to work on economic development issues. They approved the hiring of the consultant to conduct this planning study knowing full well what it would lead to, and for which the GCEDC also had obtained from the State additional $150,000 dollars to pay for. More than a quarter of a million dollars of public funds have now been spent to launch this attack on the property rights and freedoms of the citizens of this county. Your elected official’s continued silence signals their approval of what is being done. When elected officials make decisions this bad, the public must respond. These elected officials should be replaced. Our objective will be to identify incumbent officials and candidates alike who, by their words and actions, demonstrate support or lack of support for people’s property rights and freedoms and recommend candidates to our members and the community at large before Election Day. This problem began at the polls by electing the wrong people and has to end the same way by electing the right people. We invite all those citizens who value their freedom to join us and help defeat these officials and the people they hired to take our freedoms away.
The GCEDC says this and everything else they recommend is being done for economic development. This is quite clearly not true as evidenced by Owen County, and others, which, like Greene is a rural county, and which adopted all of the recommendations, which have been offered and will soon be offered here. They have their own Economic Development Corporation (like Greene), Planning Commission (which will be proposed in Greene after adoption of the Comprehensive plan), and finally land use ordinances drawn up by the Planning commission and passed by the County Commissioners. There have been no new jobs created in the county except for the zoning board and inspectors who now tell all landowners how they must build their houses or add to them or dictate what their land may be used for. In county after county throughout the state this has happened and this sad fate is what awaits Greene County if we follow the recommendations of the GCEDC. Planning and zoning clearly have been shown right next door to us to have nothing to do with economic development and will not bring jobs or industry. Economic development will only occur for good economic reasons and not because of decrees, regulations, boards, or commissions created by county officials. It doesn’t matter how you stack the rocks in the desert; you’re not going to make it rain. Economic development, if it occurs, will not be because of government, but in spite of it. Planning and zoning are a form of governmental tyranny against the rights and freedoms of citizens, which have become prevalent in the 20th century. Planning and zoning are socialist concepts and should be rejected in a free society.
Another untruth told is that people will not have to drive out of the county to work. This also is clearly not true historically or even today. In the 1960s, which was the most prosperous period of time in the last 100 years, many or most people drove out of the county to work. The jobs they drove to then are mostly gone now, having disappeared from the highly regulated, taxed, and expensive zoned counties that the GCEDC wants to imitate, such as Vigo, Monroe, and even Marion. If you live in a rural county, you will drive to work, true in all 50 states.
Still another myth being promoted is the effect of I-69 and the probability of jobs created and industry locating here because of the road. The people who believe this need to get out of Greene County more often and look around. Terre Haute, a city of 60,000, which was industrial even before its interstate has 3 exits off I-70 and two of them are State or US highways. You can drive hundreds and hundreds of miles through rural counties across the nation and never see anything but the cows, the corn, and the grass. When an Interstate crosses a highway, you’ll get one hotel (maybe), a gas station, and a restaurant. Jobs and industries are not built alongside roads because the roads are there, but rather, roads are built to lead to jobs, cities, and industries. Our leaders have it completely backwards. Industry will not locate anywhere simply because there is a road.
The census bureau reports that there are 3,141 counties in 50 states and all of them, like ours, are facing tough economic times, indeed in all the states, and many parts of the world. The GCEDC does not have a magic bullet that no one else has found. Industry and jobs are shrinking everywhere, not expanding. Let’s face reality; the GCEDC is selling false hopes to a population looking for hope, and they know it. There is nothing wrong with optimism and hope on the part of people if they aren’t really just gullibility.
There are also those among us who think that land use regulations will somehow control their neighbors or change them in some way. Our Constitution does not guarantee property values, but only provides for everyone’s liberty and freedom, that is, freedom from not just from our government but also from anyone else. Whether you like it or not and no matter how many other people may agree with you, it is not your neighbor violating your rights, but quite the contrary, you are trying to use your government to violate their rights. The hole you dig for your neighbor you will live in with him, for you cannot take his freedom away without losing your own. Zoning is not about your neighbor; it is about you. You may find security in a cage, but freedom will be nowhere near. If you think your neighbor is bad, just wait until your government moves in with you. Then you will begin to understand true misery.
The essence of planning is the ability to make the plan be realized. Planning the use of land the county does not own makes it necessary to impose land use restrictions. State law in Indiana mandates that a planning study must be complete before any land use restrictions may be imposed. Having planning without controls is a little like having a nail with no hammer. If there is anyone here who thinks that land use restrictions will not be proposed and adopted, I have a bridge you might be interested in buying – for you’re in for a rude awakening. We are here now because the law mandates these meetings, not because someone here cares what we think or want. The GCEDC and its allies know exactly what they are going to do. Unfortunately, state law denies the citizens a direct voice in this and denies them the right to vote on the issue. The apparent gullibility of our elected officials is amazing, but even it is exceeded by their lack of awareness of the reality of the world surrounding them and this county and their apparent inability to recognize false promises and expectations. Do either they or you really believe there will be prosperity just because they say so, or because they pass some regulation? Do you believe that when the county next to you clearly shows otherwise?
We appeal to everyone in the county to join us and take back control of our county from those who would so willingly give up their rights and ours for something so obviously exaggerated and untrue. If the people of this county will unite, this struggle will go on past the November elections and into the 2010 election cycle and the people will win as about 95 percent of them want. If they will not unite and fight for their rights, they will surely lose and deservedly they, along with the zoning proponents, will find out that neither prosperity nor freedom will be found anywhere alongside the road to Socialism.
Otis J. Russell, Chairman
Citizens for Property Rights
RR# 1 Box 140
Switz City, IN 47465
812-659-3334