A reader has emailed me a response to "Not Thomas Jefferson's Monticello", the previous blog entry.
I'll admit.........I had to read it twice to get its full effect. Great response. Loved it.
I read your article about Monticello Road and couldn't believe my eyes. What are you from "New York City" or something?
You said the area is “Pretty“. Didn't you see all those darn trees lining the street? Don't you know those things provide shade and oxygen? I am sure you felt lost because all the houses don’t look alike. And those over sized lots are just pure wasteful. We could probably fit twenty town homes on just one of those lots.
You said you weren’t sure but you thought saw acreage. Don't you realize some of that "acreage" has never even had a bulldozer ran over it yet? Don't you realize that all those trees and grass are a perfect habitat for bugs, horses, and wildlife? And all the diseases they carry.
Just the other day, I saw wildflowers out in a field along Monticello Road. I hope you understand that there is like 10% of our city that doesn't get sprayed with pesticides. Can you believe that? People out here don't even dump poison on their yards? All that unpaved ground could cause the rain water to soak in and provide clean ground water. Don't you care about our planet at all??
The safety of our citizens is of course the most important thing. In the past ten years there have been two accidents on this two mile stretch of road. If we don't do something, some one else might crash here by the year 2012.
The convenience that development will bring. Do you realize that now that my doctors office, grocery store, convenience store and McDonalds are almost a mile away? Thank goodness we are getting another Wal-Mart, the old one was five miles away. Can you imagine, five miles to get to Wal-Mart? It actually takes longer to drive there than it does to walk across the parking lot.
Thank goodness our city council has the wisdom to see the need for a 4 lane road to handle 2,000 cars per day. It's just too bad they weren't around 150 years ago. Those folks that traveled the California Road, that went through Monticello could have used a 64 foot wide strip of asphalt. How did those folks get along without another strip mall?
We need this road to spur development. This is such a blighted area. I don’t know when the last new thing was built in Western Shawnee. We must provide some of them good old boys with tax breaks so we can at least have ONE new thing.
And as for this being a rural area, this is the "CITY of Shawnee". Cities have asphalt like Overland Park. I'm sure you have heard of them. They are our idol.
Who really cares about people losing their homes? We need more asphalt. We need more strip malls. We need more banks. We need more housing. You can hardly find a house for sale in Western Shawnee.
About those folks that are loosing their homesteads. Who cares if their families lived in Monticello before the Pfricks came to America? Who cares if they built their house themselves before Pfrack went bankrupt in Nevada? We need to get rid of all that green. We want Overland Park beige.
I'm not Bill
But I live
on the hill.
P.S. To the families being evicted. Maybe the council would change their mind if you would just paint your house beige
