Zoned Out
Steve Shaw’s article about development in the Feb. 22 LEO Weekly is hard-hitting. Wildcat developments, the privatization of parks, sewer lines and pump stations, lack of agency coordination and maltreatment of the public continue unabated in Jefferson County. Sewers are sprawling to direct development growth. MSD’s promises of “reserved capacity” plus promises of sewer line extensions augment sprawl. Even large businesses put in septic systems (promised future connection when sewers were built)! The Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Justice sued MSD in 2005 to force MSD to address overloaded sewer plants. MSD did not and does not meet all permit limits due to overloading of several sewer plants. The Kentucky Division of Water has done such a poor job of MSD oversight that oversight needs to revert back to the EPA.
Metro Planning and Zoning has been out of the loop when it comes to MSD making decisions about sewer line extensions and building pump stations. Big mistake! MSD roguishly forced plans that put a pox on the Floyds Fork Valley (infrastructure could have been moved to a different location). There must be a hidden agenda? One reason for the location was a “financial interest” of 1,183 acres from Taylorsville Road to Billtown Road by Billtown LLC (Flynn Brothers Construction).
Representative Jim Wayne is right to say Metro Louisville has “dumb growth.” We could have smarter growth if the planning commissioners would use their authority to say “No” at times.
Allowing Jeffersontown to create their own zoning adjustment is a sledgehammer to resident input and planning. Permitting Jeffersontown’s mayor and council to decide waivers and variances negates planning expertise. The move to silence the Planning and Design Services’ trained professional planners was not a surprise but is unfair to planners, the public and businesses. It thwarts the planning process.
Shaw is not surly, he is just right!
Teena Halbig, South End
We Care
What a grouch! The winner of LEO’s “You Are So Louisville If …” competition says, “You are so Louisville if your kid spends more time on a bus than in a classroom.” I’m thinking the JCPS assignment plan is “so Louisville” because it shows we really care about our neighbors next door and across town. All kinds and colors. We continue work out ways to integrate our public schools in spite of right-wing federal judges who blindly believe equal opportunity just happens without any effort. You won’t find that in our U.S. Constitution, by the way. We’re not ideologues here.
We’ve heard many people say Louisville is a little bit Southern and a little bit Midwestern and not entirely either one. Here’s another example.
Tom Louderback, Highlands
Not So Louisville
May I suggests a few additions to the “You Are So Louisville If ...” article?: You are so Louisville if you blame JCPS students’ long bus rides on the student assignment plan and not on Louisville’s segregated neighborhoods. You are so Highlands/Crescent Hill/Clifton if you believe that everyone in the city reads the LEO, mostly patronizes local businesses, frequents coffee shops, and hangs out exclusively on Bardstown Road and Frankfort Avenue.
Alicia Hurle, Highlands
Spermicans
Just when you think the Republican Party has reached its nadir, they somehow manage on a daily basis to get worse. Do not be surprised when the platform at their national convention contains their main theme for the fall election: “Sperms are corporations, too.”
Tom Ridge, Camp Taylor
