December 5th is fast approaching.  We need to make sure that everyone who cares about the future of McMullen Valley is prepared to attend the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting.  Just as a reminder, it is on the 5th at 3:00 pm at Centennial Community Center.

It would be great also if as many people as possible are prepared to speak.  We will probably be limited to 3 minutes, which is approxiately one complete type written page.  While this does not seem to be a lot of time for such a complicated issue, it should be enough.  As long as we have as many people speak as possible.

The County has received enough communication already that when printed out and double sided, is about two inches tall.  All of these communications have been sent to the members of the P&Z commission, so hopefully they will come to the meeting well informed.  Having a large number of people speak out will have an even greater influence on the members and they need to know how strongly this community is standing against the proposed location of this smelter.

On Wednesday, November 27th, the water department in Wenden will be mailing a reminder to all residents with an account as an additional effort to inform and remind residents about the meeting.  I will also be emailing a copy of the notice to everyone in our community whom I have an email address.

If anyone needs or wants any assistance in preparing their remarks, just contact me and I will be happy to provide assistance.  Do not worry if someone else touches on the same issues and concerns about this project.  It doesn’t matter,  because the more the members of the commission hear the information, hopefully the more impact it will have.

If you are reluctant to speak at the meeting, try and contact someone who is planning on speaking up and tell them that you will give them your time.  Then when they are called up to speak, simply stand behind them and state that you are giving your time to them,  that way we can maximize the time.

I found out that in a misguided attempt to make sure this meeting does not run into the evening hours, our Director of Economic Development was going to limit the number of people who could speak at the meeting to 20.  He was quickly told that that would not fly and it was in fact illegal.  We shouldn’t care how long this meeting is because there is nothing more important than this issue in the history of our valley and our protection of our only supply of water.