Everyone's generous with other people's money

Out in my particular area of "Redville", is a building with some historic significance but has not had any success with various restaurant operations that have occupied the space.

The owner is currently attempting to sell the property to a Speedway gas operation who intend to demolish the property and put up a gas station.

Last week I received an email from some people who want to preserve this property. They want to begin a mail campaign to the local township trustees who need to change the zoning for the Speedway. Here is the text of the email they want me to send out...........

Dear _ _ _

We would like to express our opposition to razing the historic 20-Mile House and ask you and the other county commissioners to develop alternatives.

· We feel that demolishing a building – especially an historic one – is a drastic solution to an owner’s difficulty paying the mortgage. We would hope that a more moderate solution could be found that may ease the owner’s mortgage difficulties and preserve the building

· We believe that razing an historic building to ease the owner’s personal finances sets a poor precedent for our community

· We object to the owner’s logic, as reported in the Enquirer, that since he has allowed much of the building’s interior historical features to be destroyed he might as well destroy the entire building

Sincerely,

Did you notice a few things.

First, there's no one stepping up to purchase this property from the current owner to relieve him of this financial burden.

Second, there's no compassion for the current owner's financial condition. Apparently, these guys have no problems watching the owner suffer so they can feel good about saving s historic building.

Third, they offer no credible plan for a better use for this property.

Look, I think it's sad that this building can't seem to have success. But I also think it's sad that the old A&W root beer stand my parents used to take us to as kids is now a veterinarian's office.

My wife and I have been to each of the operations and frankly, didn't care for any of the restaurants that have occupied the place. Frankly, the place is just too damn big for a credible restaurant operation.

None the less, I think a Speedway is an excellent choice to replace it. Why? because someone is willing to spend millions of dollars to turn a run down historic sight into something else. A plan that far exceeds anything proposed by the people running this campaign (which is nothing).

These are the same people who think that if we spend another trillion dollars or so on top of the trillions already spent on alternative energy plans it will somehow come out all right. Of course, none of them are willing to pony up any money for any of this. Just like you probably won't see any of them offer the current owner money to hold up the sale until a better use can found.

Do you think it's a coincidence that people are so much more generous with other people's money?

And we wonder why government's are in the shape they're in.

I think I'm going to send an email to these county commissioners to invest taxpayer money into a time machine. That way we can go back in time and never build the building in the first place. That would keep the place prime for a profit making operation.