FEBRUARY 4, 2010 ISSUE
Letters to the Editor
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Outspoken—Freedom of Speech
Email correspondence between NC DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) personnel is interesting:
“Brian in Watauga held his first meeting related to development of a countywide farmland protection plan (they have a grant from ADFP). He got attacked by two specific landowners and the meeting went downhill. He tried to explain to them that what they thought is not what is really going on. Please see the link below with letters to the editor from the two outspoken landowners. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.”
This employee, who later destroyed public records, was “attacked?” And “outspoken” is defined in dictionaries as being “frank and direct.” Yet, some DENR personnel are disapproving of landowners for being outspoken. Apparently, the employee, Brian, did not do a good job in his explanation of “what is really going on.” And, he didn’t win our confidence by destroying pubic records.
The county subcontracted the job to write a farmland protection plan to a for-profit conservation real estate company. The same professionals assisted in writing the grant and were later awarded $20,000 of the $30,000 grant. Lack of due diligence in protecting the people’s money and records is evident from the beginning, and this lack of protection still continues. Start with the $2,000 costs to have a Community Visionary Workshop (held in the people’s facility free of charge). The following advice given in response to the above email is very revealing regarding the attitude many public employees have towards the people and just how wasteful the $2,000 expenditure was:
“Step back and take a deep breath. Most people in a locale will not show up at a meeting and even fewer will speak out, try to determine if this (is) a minority, or majority of landowners’ thinking. Likely it is the feeling of a minority of your county residents.”
Another rather presumptuous suggestion from the NC DENR respondent went as follows:
“Was someone in place to keep the meeting orderly and on track? It is against the law to disrupt a meeting, once those who are causing the problems have been asked to get in order one time.”
The following comes from the subcontractor: “Wondering if and how we could have held any kind of Community Visioning workshop and sidestepped people with agendas about the county’s motives”
Local farmers can see how scary this situation is. The previous and following quotes come from the grant application and the same people who propose to write our farmland protection plan:
“Watauga County’s $20 million agricultural economy is currently centered around beef cattle production (14,000 head, 6,000 acres in hay, 52,000 acres in crops – mainly corn), Christmas trees and an increasing amount of local vegetables, orchards, vineyards, nurseries and berry crops. In the past, the area was known for cabbage production for sauerkraut and some tobacco. The project will assess the current viability of these products in light of rising farmland prices ($12,000/ac) and changes in farm ownership, and outline the county’s agricultural future.”
How scary is that? These dubious statistics came from the same people who propose to write our farmland protection plan.
Deborah Greene
Haiti Relief Tax Deductions Benefit Companies, Forfeit Needed Tax Revenue
Reading about Virginia Foxx’s co-sponsorship of the bill H.R. 4462 that makes charitable donations for the Haiti relief deductible got me puzzled. Is there too much tax revenue that tax money that is sorely needed in this country can be thrown away like this?
Let’s take a closer look at some of the implications of that bill: This bill allows companies to rid themselves of unsold merchandise, which is taxable inventory, and then to deduct those donations from the taxes they are required to pay on their profits. If the markup on the donated goods is high enough, companies can, with the help of this bill, actually increase their profits by donating to the Haiti disaster relief. So everybody wins, it seems.
Unfortunately not. It is, as always, the working American who is being left out. The lost tax revenue will be missing in all government funded programs, including public schooling, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and any kind of financial relief for people who suffer from a recession that they had no part in causing.
These are of course programs that Virginia Foxx has never championed. In time-honored Republican fashion, she works overtime to increase the gap between the haves and the have-nots, making the life of the poor people a little harder. Why? One thing is that poor people can be pushed around easier, uneducated people are less likely to stand up for themselves successfully, and people with health problems don’t even have the energy to do anything else but to accept whatever comes their way.
In a perverted way, this bill makes a lot of sense. It is another little coup in an effort to create laws that keep poor people where they are: down! The disgusting part is that it comes disguised as charity and generosity. But how generous is tax-deducted charity anyways?
Andreas Tzotschew
Blowing Rock
EDITOR'S NOTE: High Country Press does not verify the information in the letters to the editor submitted to the newspaper and does not endorse the positions expressed in the letters. The opinions and assertions are those of the writers alone.
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