Activism 101

We got a notice in the mail 10 days ago that a developer had bought the land behind our house and was planning on putting a self storage facility on it, complete with RV parking (basically in our back yard). We were invited to an "informational meeting" by the developer and this is where the fun begins.

To make a long story short, Brian and I are spearheading a group of people against this storage facility and have been going door-to-door getting a petition signed, made a poster with information for residents to read, met with the Town Council, sent emails to all community members, etc... in order to show this developer that this storage facility was not wanted or needed in the community. Long, long story short: after getting over 300 signatures, the developer called Brian directly on Friday to ask him if they could meet and discuss this face-to-face. He said that he now realizes that the storage facility is a bad idea and wants our input on what would be a good use for the land behind our house. Since the land is zoned commercial there will probably be something up there, but we have lots of ideas that would be far less dangerous and ugly and much more useful for our community than a storage facility. Our top four ideas so far:

1. Turn it into a gym with space for yoga, pilates, bootcamp, indoor swimming pool, etc....

2. Turn it into a solar power farm.

3. Sell is back to community members so we can turn it into a big playground and dog park.

4. Daycare facility

Only #3 is really desirable (but unfortunately unlikely...), but the others are far safer than self storage and something we could live with.

So, this week has been very busy! Brian has amazed me with his dedication to the cause. He has been standing outside the Merc any free moment and getting signatures on the petition, has spoken to more neighbors than I think we have ever spoken to combined in our almost 4 years of life here, and has gone through the CCNR's with a fine tooth comb. For a man that truly does not like chatting it up with strangers, he has been a trooper. It has been a really good lesson for Jake- to see us work together with neighbors to "fight the powers that be". His "give back" for baseball (machine pitch this year!) was going door to door with Brian.

The meeting with the developer is this Wednesday. Wish us luck...