Y i'\r-w 1 A 1 Time to speak up

i'\r-w 1 A 1

Time to speak up

SOME MEETINGS of vital importance to the people of Rappahannock County are coming up. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, August 30, the County Planning Commission has scheduled a public hearing on the proposed amendments to the county’s subdivision and zoning ordinances. At 10 a.m. September 6, the Board of Supervisors will follow up with consideration of what the Planning Commission recommends.

While these amendments have been in the works, the county has had in effect a moratorium on subdivisions, so that no marginal developments would be able to slip through any last minute “loopholes.” It was a wise precaution.

But now the time has come to get down to brass tacks, and it is time for the public to make its wishes known.

UNLESS WE BADLY misinterpret the feelings of the people of Rappahannock County — and of their elected representatives — most people would like their county to stay open, uncluttered, rural and beautiful. There are some Fancy Dan developer lawyer types who will tell you, in effect, that this is impossible to do, legally.

We don’t believe them; we think the people living in a beautiful county like Rappahannock have as much of a right as anyone to say how their county will be developed or not developed — more, if you really get down to it — and that there isn’t a court or a judge that would deny them this equal right if it were put in those terms.

BUT JUST WISHING won’t make it so, and there must, of course, be as sturdy a statutory underpinning for a policy decision as it is possible to devise. That’s why it’s important that the citizens of Rappahannock take time to study proposed methods of strengthening the county’s zoning and subdivision ordinances, and of making their views known when the opportunity is available.

As hapless citizens of Fairfax, Prince William, Loudoun and Fauquier have found out, it’s sometimes futile to holler later, if you don’t speak up sooner. □