Chiappetta
I grew up a Bloomington boy, enjoying the countryside, quarries and many nearby parks. Then I moved to San Diego in 1972, which could only be described as paradise at that time. By the time I moved to Johnson County in 1994, it had become paradise lost. Unplanned and uncontrolled development had filled San Diego County and slowly but surely all the open spaces disappeared.
This, too, can happen to Johnson County. I am going on 30 years as a resident of Johnson County and still treasure the quality of life we get to enjoy. As we can all see by the rapid growth, many others agree with us and are moving to our little corner of paradise in droves. Unless we act now a critical element of our quality of life will disappear.
Johnson County still has plenty of green space, where we can enjoy the pleasures that connection with natural spaces brings, but if what happened in San Diego County is repeated here, it will soon be long gone. They’ll take paradise and put up a parking lot.
So, what are we to do to preserve the green spaces that are essential to the quality of life in Johnson County? I propose we must act now to establish the parks, trails and recreation facilities we all want to be part of the good life we live here.
We all want parks, trails and recreational facilities set aside along with the inevitable development of distribution centers, strip malls and high-density housing that are sprouting like mushrooms. However, as the city and county governments make decisions, we have no unified voice to counteract the very well-organized voice of the developers. Make no mistake, our local officials are dedicated public servants with good intentions, however they simply don’t hear us. They certainly hear the developers loud and clear.
How many repeats of the distribution center fiasco in Clark Township, or the high-density housing development on Stones Crossing Road with no park or trails included will occur without a change in course? Where is the accompanying plan for public trails to connect the development at the new I-69 interchange to Bargersville? We must act now to hear our voices heard.
Local officials on the city and county zoning boards, councils and commissioners must hear our collective support for a county parks plan that sets aside more land for future county parks and trails, not just the minimal funding for our existing county parks. The existing county trail plan must be funded now, so that we don’t have to play dodge ball with cars if we want to walk or bicycle around our cities and county.
We must contact our city and county officials and stress that open space, parks, trails and recreational facilities should be prioritized and funded.
If they do not respond accordingly, we must support candidates that pledge they will do so.
If you wish to join this unified voice, visit the Facebook group page “Keep JoCo Green”. Details on the development decisions that we are now facing, the status of comprehensive development plans and the contact information of local officials that can hear collective voices can be found there.
This is not a red or blue issue. I have not run into one resident that tells me they don’t want more parks and trails to complement our rapid growth in housing, commercial space and industry. It’s a green issue, and our local officials need to hear and act on our collective voices now.
Keep Johnson County green!
Mike Chiappetta
Democrat of Bargersville
Candidate for Johnson County Council
