WHAT
OTHERS ARE SAYINGWHAT
OTHERS ARE SAYINGHighlands Today Letter to Editor 8/28/09 PERSONAL EXPERIENCE LIVING NEAR LIVE FIREA PASSIONATE LETTER TO THE COMMISSIONERS THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE | A Letter to the Editor from 8/28/09 Highlands TodayNews stories in Highlands Today have said, twice, that the proposed Eagle National Security Training Center will have its own water and sewage treatment. However, the handout at the Planning and Zoning meeting says that there is “no information” on how water and sewage treatment will be handled. For a project that is supposed to be meticulously planned, this falls short. The site of the Eagle Training Center is adjacent to the Fisheating Creek Wildlife Management Area. This Wildlife Management Area has also been named an Important Bird Area by the National and Florida Audubon Societies. From the online description of this Important Bird Area: “Fisheating Creek contains a staging area for Swallow-tailed Kites that is the largest in the United States. Up to 2200 kites have been seen at once, and perhaps 3000 individuals use the roost annually, which represents about 60% of the North American population.” In addition, Swallow-tailed Kites are known to be disturbed by noise and have moved their nesting grounds in response to airboat noise. What will be the effect of the airstrip that comes with the Eagle Training Center? We know that it will not be confined to small planes. From the same document: “The Fisheating Creek Watershed also is a Strategic Habitat Conservation Area for the Florida panther.” This information can be found at http://www.audubon.org/bird. We have been told that the land for the Eagle Center has been an orange grove and so is far from being in a natural state. However, it is unusual for orange groves to be fenced. Bears and panthers can easily pass through an unfenced orange grove without being noticed, especially at night. The proposed Training Center would be fenced, secured and totally impassable to all wildlife. Sincerely, Dale R. Gillis (reprinted with permission of the author) From Personal Experience Living 10 miles from Fort Sill, Oklahoma
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This is the letter I just emailed to the commissioners. I will also snail mail registered mail to each. We just made copies of the Flyer and are going to post them in all the stores in Lake Placid and the American Legion where we are members.
Dear Commissioner: I wish to voice my objection to the Eagle Training Center in Venus Florida. Here are some further thoughts you need to consider:
More than just the impact to the land and water shed is the impact on the people. You have no idea of the unintended consequences you are about to cause. You are fixing to force upon a quiet community of families, 1,000+ men. That is more than the entire male population of Venus. These are not ministers, but killers. Men coming to train to kill, explode bombs, force their way into homes. These men have a violent nature, or they would not be interested in this type of training. Some from countries that do not have the same respect for laws or women that we do here in the USA. These men will also attract drug dealers, alcohol, prostitutes, and violence. If you think for one minute you are going to keep these people on the compound and out of Lake Placid or Sebring looking for a good time, you are extremely naive. If you think you are not going to have rapes of our young girls that now ride freely thru Venus on their horses, again, you are extremely naive. If this happens, and it will, IT WILL BE ON YOUR CONSCIENCE. Think beyond the money, smooth talking salesmen and lawyers. Think of the people. These are your neighbors, your friends, your family. We do not need blood money. It will overwhelm our police department, and community services. It will only bring undesirable people, bad behavior and violence to our community. Mark my words! If you vote for this: WE WILL VOTE AGAINST YOUR RE-ELECTION. Venus Residents |
Highlands
County, or any county in the US is not equipped to address this type of
paramilitary development and that is why the Department of Defense has
Congressional Oversight, to protect Americans from such power seeking
private corporate and military entities from freely having their way
with public funds, public lands and other public impacts including
social, cultural, economic and ecological. This is contrary to the
grain of a democratic America. There is something basically
unAmerican about all of this. Who gives this private group of
generals, the right and the power to operate in this manner?
Florida Governor Crist should step in here and answer these
questions, or the US President.
Without
a doubt, this is not just a small time training center as they would
like all to believe, it is a big time state of the art military base
for everything and it must be sanctioned by some federal source that
the generals have tapped into. They could (and will) run a war
out of here and ironically, it is positioned center not only our great
natural public lands, but also central to the state-peninsula, in the
middle of "nowhere" as they mentioned and would command
the Caribbean and Central America. There will be huge towers
that the birds will collide with, fuel depots of which when
combusted by the tanks and planes will permeate throughout the
watershed, paint and oxidized paint, spent ordinance, human wastes and
medical chemicals, massive amounts of herbicides, mowing debris, tons
and tons of auto wasteproducts that include worn tire rubbers from huge
highway loads, and other chemicals leaching either directly or
indirectly into Fisheating (creek)
Something they are doing is using public natural areas (and ag and other landowners land) as their actual buffers to civilization, at the expense of those natural ecosystems. A military base such as Elgin has government owned buffers but this place does not and will be impacting others due to lack of a viable plan, or is that their intent? Once established, other uses such as strip clubs, fast food joints, off-base housing and a plethora of single family homes wherever they can pop up and many many ugly service oriented business(es) will sucker onto this place quickly, same as every other base in the US, and same as Disney in Orlando with its impact on neighboring Osceola County and Orlando rife with sprawl.
You can assume that DOT (Department of Transportation) will amplify the highway and rail system accordingly at the expense of Florida and US taxpayers. (in fact, this is already happening, ed. note.)
Venus will be a sanctuary no more and now that has already started simply with the anticipation of this development's impact. While they will house their own trainees, their staff and employees will tremendously impact surrounding area, with graffic to and from, homesteads littering the rural landscape, substandard septic tanks and worst of all, the off hour hunting and hell-raising throughout primitive nature that is now comparatively quiet and natural wilderness and pastureland. It is all so predictable and why, because three generals want to go play in the woods of Florida and make a profit and seek power, separate from the Department of Defense's rules and regulations, their own unregulated fiefdome but with real guns, tanks, cannons, live fire aircraft, helicopters and a high degree of security and surveillance of the surrounding neighbors and areas for "force protection" purposes.
This in not productive economic development. This is whoring of a rural Florida landscape for the profit of a few, at the expense of viable economic development and nature based tourism.
Posted by a consultant for US military installations. (Used with permission.)