Tonight City Council is going to approve a proclamation recognizing Constitution Week.   The Milton Coalition is fully supportive of Council’s proclamation tonight.  However, we remind Council that the best way to honor the Constitution is with actions, especially upholding the five fundamental rights listed in the First Amendment.

The best way to uphold free speech is to allow citizens to speak even when Council members disagree with what citizens say and how they say it.  The best way to uphold free assembly is to embrace groups (like the Milton Coalition) that freely form to promote good governance.  And the best way to uphold the right of citizens to petition for redress of grievances is to take seriously those citizens’ petitions.

Council, thank you for recognizing Constitution Week.

Citizens:

It is important that citizens continue to sign the Petition urging Council to protect our gravel roads.  This means a strict interpretation of the three-acre lot minimum along gravel roads that includes not only lots accessed from a gravel road, but lots adjacent to a gravel road.  Council Member Kunz has already stated that legally landowners are entitled to one-acre lots due to precedent.  (This is actually false.  See earlier post on this issue.)  However, Council member Kunz and Lusk have already supported 1-acre lot minimums along gravel roads in the 745 Ebenezer Road rezoning.  And they will certainly support 1-acre lots along Lackey Road, when a rezoning application is ultimately brought forward for parcels along that road.  The application will certainly be disguised in “conservation” language, but obviously one-acre lots (vs. three-acre) lots are not conservatory, except in the Orwellian world that Mr. Lusk and Mr. Kunz inhabit, where language is manipulated as a means to an end.

In the next few months, Council will be adopting clarifying language for three-acre minimum lots along gravel road.  Accordingly, citizens need to continue to stay engaged.  Following is the Wood Road petition.  Please sign and urge your friends and neighbors to sign.  Thank you.  Click on the following link to get to the petition.

Wood Road Petition

Following are some photos taken from the 27-unit townhouse development across from Cambridge High School.  This development is Exhibit A in how terribly wrong we can get rezoning in Milton.  Sewer was extended and density was increased by 3 times.  The rezoning approval motion was made by Bill Lusk and seconded by Matt Kunz.  (Don’t let anyone tell you that the person that makes the first and second motions on important issues does not matter; it does.)  At the time, Council Member Kunz even bragged to the Milton Herald about the townhouses:

“We approved the subdivision with an additional 25 feet of buffer space not required by Agricultural-1 (AG-1) regulations, making it a total of 75 feet of space, and also capped the sewer.  About half of the land will now be left as undeveloped, natural land.”

And don’t let anyone tell you that the choice was between a church and townhouses.  This is false.  This property was zoned AG-1 and should have been developed AG-1.  An AG-1 development would have yielded no more than 9 homes and would have better fit the look and feel of the area.  And as we have seen so many times, in approving this development, Council disregarded the recommendations of the Planning Commission, which voted 7-0 to deny this abomination.

This is just more evidence–as if you needed more–that Mr. Lusk and Mr. Kunz are the most pro-development members of Council.

Where is the supposed 75-foot buffer?

 

 

Below is a reckless and false argument made on social media by Council Member Kunz, where he argues for one-acre minimum lots on gravel roads.

First, this is a reckless and irresponsible statement for an elected official to make.  It is yet another example of a Council member positing an opinion about an issue where he has no expertise and prejudging an issue before all the facts are known or citizens have registered their opinions.

Second, the statement is just plain false.  There is no precedent.  Period.  This so-called loophole has never been used in the City of Milton.  This issue was only raised recently with Nix Road and now on Wood Road.

The real reason for this ridiculous social media posting is that two Council members have previously, but unsuccessfully, supported one-acre lots along gravel roads.  With the Ebenezer rezoning, Council members Kunz and Lusk and supported Brightwater Homes contention that 1 acre lots were permissible as long as these lots were accessed from a paved road.  This assertion was made to support higher density than would have otherwise been allowed under existing zoning.

I would contend that those who make such irresponsible and false statements do not support preserving our gravel roads or land conservation.  They do not represent the will of citizens in Milton.

(Note:  In his post, Council Member Kunz mentions that a CSO would have included a collaborative process.  However, such a collaborative process can be included in improvements to AG-1.  In fact, the AG-1 enhancements currently being considered by Council include more collaboration with citizens.  And if Council Member Kunz wants a even more collaborative zoning process, why hasn’t he proposed one for AG-1?  The reason is that his goal is cluster homes, higher density, and community septic.  These are needed to allow builders to profitably develop currently unprofitable land in Milton.  That is the real motivation behind a CSO; the collaborative process is just window dressing.)

This picture says it all.  Those who are posturing, preening, and pandering about transparency are hypocrites.  Certain council members prefer whispered conversations to texting because it leaves no record.  They use private e-mail for City business, which is prohibited.  During the April 25th meeting to consider rezoning of 745 Ebenezer Road, Council Member Lusk engaged in no less than 4 private conversations (one while a citizen was speaking) with other council members.  Yet he feigns “I’m shocked, shocked that texting is going on in here.”  Yes, hypocrites indeed.  But also clever by half.  Milton’s citizens are smart and engaged.  They will not fall for thinly veiled schemes to score political points.  Serious public policy issues should not be manipulated for partisan purposes.

Photo was taken during a Council working session in Summer 2016.