Stop the Development
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: ‘Young people love shopping, dense development and lots of amenities, and if our community is going to continue to prosper, let alone grow, it has to adapt to the tastes of the next generation.’
While this argument may be true for some young people, it’s not true for all, and those of us looking to raise our budding families want communities that are rural, small and not overpopulated.
I raise this point because of the recent announcement by Industrial Commercial Properties LLC’s plan for the development of the Geauga Lake district. Although Bainbridge is rapidly becoming overdeveloped and crowded, with natural space being chopped down for yet more housing developments, the rapid ‘Beachwood-ification’ of our township continues unopposed. ICP’s redevelopment plan adds more housing and shopping. This is being sold as a win for the township because it will add more tax revenue.
But while it may add more dollars to the revenue side, the new souls and shopping areas will certainly add more dollars to the cost side of the ledger as well. Public services, already overtaxed, will have to respond to ever more shoplifting and other nuisance calls.
Our roads, such as 306, will become even more crowded with nearly a thousand more people added to the township. The quiet of the area will be replaced by the dull roar of thousands of commuters hustling to and fro.
Animals and nature? Out, to be replaced by ever-more big box stores selling imported trinkets from China.
Let’s be frank with ourselves. No one moves to Bainbridge Township and the Chagrin Valley because they want more retail chain shopping (or, for that matter, more neighbors). They move to the Chagrin area because of its rural atmosphere, the lack of density and the rich endowments of natural spaces and parkland.
ICP, owned by people who do not even live in the area, may win this battle and develop the former parkland into yet another yuppie beehive. However, caution is warranted for the leaders of the area. Continued development will destroy the small community feel of the area and irrevocably destroy one of Cleveland’s and, indeed, Ohio’s great assets: the Chagrin Valley. Nature, once lost to the forces of development, can never be recovered.
Dane Davis
Bainbridge Township
Destroying Volunteer Enthusiasm
An open letter of the Geauga Library Administration, Board of Trustees and Foundation:
As a member of the West Geauga Friends of the Library, your most recent decision to share our hard work and funds with other library branches is way over the line.
The idea of the friends group is intended to be local. We volunteer and work to help our branch of the library because we live close and actually use the facility. We know the staff and they know us. We encourage local residents to help raise funds for the things that we know will improve our Geauga West branch.
You will destroy all volunteer enthusiasm by taking away our ability to say how our funds are dispersed. Do you think saying to our supporters, “Come on people, donate time and money, and then we, the foundation, will send the money out to other branches.” People are not stupid, especially those that want to help because they can see the result of their efforts.
In all candor, it sure sounds like someone in management is lacking people skills and training. If one of the branches needs to start a friends group, then get them the help that they need in reaching out and educating them on how it’s done. Make them responsible for their own branch; give them a stake in their branch’s success and not a handout. Socialism won’t work in this case.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Bernie Alpers
Munson Township
