Garrett Hill Hits a Bump in the Road

The Garrett Hill zoning changes were on the agenda Monday night (9/22/08). Athough there were a ton of open meetings by the Steering Committee, a review by the Township Planning Commission and a Public Hearing, local landlord/developer Steve Bajus asked for more time to review the documents. A petition was also presented by the local businesses stating that they had some last minute concerns/questions. So, in order to attempt to circumvent potential litigation, the Commissioners agreed to table the "thing" until October 27th. The vote was 6-1 with Commissioner Fisher voting against. He strongly expressed his opinion that there was no need for the delay and the entire issue was (in my words) bull excrement. I couldn't agree more. In fact I do not think adding additional time will head off lawsuits. I think that the opponents will still resort to this tactic if they don't get their way.

Rick Barker, who led the Steering Committee, is a better man that me. He did an excellent job answering the issues that were brought up and he did so calmly despite being harrassed by Comm. Hervada who kept citing the Wayne Business District procedings as a good example of the benefit of further discussion. Wow, what a distortion of the facts.... That process was closed and somewhat secretive with the final result being dumped on the Community as a fete a compli (if that is the way you spell that). In the case of Garrett Hill, the process has been the model of openness and transparency. Again, to suggest you need more time begs the question, "where have you been"?