by David Williams
Letter to the editor
If you build it, they will come. That was true for Kevin Costner’s character in Field of Dreams, and it’s also true when it comes to utility infrastructure. If we build new water and wastewater treatment plants on the backs of existing utility ratepayers, the people will come, and in droves. We’ll have another round of breakneck growth with more congestion and more demands on our schools. We’ll have another round of school redistricting. Remember how painful that was?
Commissioners who don’t blink at raising utility rates 33% won’t blink when faced with similar increases in property taxes to address the consequences of another cycle of reckless growth.
When you subsidize something, you get more of it. The last thing Union County needs to subsidize is more residential development along congested and often dangerous two-lane corridors. That’s insane.
County commissioners, are you listening? This untamed growth needs to stop. The people are way ahead of you on this. Our neighbors to the south in York County are so fed up that they recently passed a moratorium on all new residential development around the Lake Wylie area.
That’s not where I am. Yet. However, if you remain tone-deaf to what Union County is telling you, I don’t doubt that folks will be clamoring for that here, too.
David Williams is running for Union County Board of Commissioners