BLINK!!!!

Attended the Public Input meeting tonite.
A straw vote early in the evening suggested that the votes might be there for a resolution that Burton would introduce at some point.

Thursday is a big meeting with Bergel, Godfrey and the two BOS from out here in Catoctin/Blue Ridge. I think that the evening of public speaking was a bit premature in that this meeting had not occurred yet. The meeting had been planned well before this input.

Outcomes:
It looks like a game of Blink!!!! If the BOS enters a resolution that they have no intentions of constructing a school on the site...the School Board can purchase it anyway and hope these Supervisors are voted out before them. Not likely. I think the School Board lays their proverbial heads across the axing stump with that plan.

The School Board can now aquire the land anyway, and gamble that they are more popular than the BOS, and when this bunch of Supervisors gets voted out, they'll work with their replacements to build on the property.

There's also a probable civil action against the School Board to save the house on the property on or before June 1st. Even if the County stops the demolition permit, they'll get sued and Sal will be delayed by days...not weeks.

Interestingly, I saved the fact that the Millers (who own the controversial property in Lovettsville) were going to fly in, and they did. What they said pretty much pulled that property off of the availability list. Unless the Board gets into "Eminent Domain Mode....yet another reason to stretch their necks across the block and let the voters have at them.

At the root of all of this, they'll overpay for the property, and in 10 years , we'll have a piece of land that isn't worth anything except the frontage when 287 is widened.

Call your School Board member and let them know that they are the most likely to be voted out, if they follow thru and do not push for a renegotiation. Money's tight.
The big boys, DuPree and Hatrick need to realize that the gig is up.

UPDATE: I caught alot of crap from a few anonymous posters over at TooConservative.com , because I said the money wasn't there for the purchase of this Wheatlands. Turns out, I was right. The Schools were paid for in a referendum on the ballot sometime ago, but the School Board doesn't have enough. They need funds from the BOS to purchase something of the amount of Wheatlands.
What is upsetting is a group of individuals who would actively embrace Eminent Domain and condemnation of a parcel in Lovettsville for even more money after this site is off the radar. In fact, that's why they've joined the fight....so they can get their long-awaited school in Lovettsville, and make the rest of the population out in Waterford, Round Hill, Neersville and Hillsboro come to them...sitting a mere two miles from the State line and so far out of the actual attendance grid, it looks sorely odd to place it there.
They never cared what Wheatlands cost was...only that it prevented them from getting their school in Lovettsville.

Let's be clear. No matter who condemns and takes the first piece of property in this county, it's going to be an ugly road for them. The first thing they can count on is kissing any chance of reelection good-bye. It's just that unpopular with 95% of the property owners in the County. Like the unpopular actions of the last BOS, the people will solidly back removal of anyone who thinks they are big enough to stand between people and their legally aquired land and the amounts of money that we paid for it, just to think that we "owned" it.
The faults don't end there, however. The small group is also advocating for the flip or the aquisition of a 91 acre parcel that became a public park after a 2004 referendum before the people. Many folks in Lovettsville worked very hard to get the park, and they raised quite a bit of money to purchase it before the County was approached to help obtain it.
Without actually placing it on another referendum and asking those same voters if they'd approve a flip, the group is advocating the subversion of the will of the people...something they don't really have a use for.
Stay tuned...