Guest Opinion

Who says we can’t do better for our future than a warehouse?

By: Micah Rasmussen
Our common future is being decided in the weeks ahead, and the choices could not be any more clear – are we to become a community of industrial warehouses and a hopelessly unbuilt school, or will we seize upon this rare moment and demand better for ourselves and the generations ahead? Will we resign ourselves to what simply "has to be" or will we insist that it is not acceptable to settle for anything less than "what could be" when it comes to Upper Freehold and Allentown?
   I refuse to believe that we cannot do better than an industrial warehouse complex that will fail to even come close to paying for itself, all the while preventing us from driving on our roads without complete gridlock, and bringing us diesel fumes along with air, water, noise and light pollution.
   And to those who are cynically dangling trumped-up dollar signs in front of Upper Freehold’s property taxpayers, stop it. Start telling the truth, which is that warehouse complexes demand municipal services – many of which Upper Freehold will need to build expensive infrastructure to provide. I have searched repeatedly for the towns that host industrial warehouse complexes and don’t have their own local police departments, and found none. Establishing a local police department will require a commitment of millions of dollars every year. The quickest way to go from a $7.2 million dollar municipal budget to a $10 million one is to allow a development that will require policing and responding to hundreds upon hundreds of emergency calls.
   It is impossible for me to believe that more than 700 residents of Upper Freehold alone — who have all respectfully urged their representatives on the Planning Board and the Township Committee to reject a land use application that will destroy quality of life in our community — must go unanswered. And why? Because a handful of folks stubbornly refuse to accept that the Planning Board has more than ample, legally sound reasons to weigh the substantial traffic, environmental and scale and size problems at least as heavily as the private profit considerations of the developer?
   I also refuse to believe that we cannot do better than a perpetually stalled school site. At the end of the day, even if we could get past the critical wastewater and contamination problems (and to be sure, we cannot), we would be stuck with a site that cannot support any further expansion, which means we’re going to be right back to square one the next time we need to build – right back to the very same time-consuming, expensive site selection and septic problems that have plagued us for the past several years now.
   When my dad died unexpectedly, we mourned the fact that with doctors so understandably concerned about the high cost of medical malpractice insurance, they tend to focus only on their specialized piece of the puzzle. All the while, no one pays enough attention to the big picture – in my family’s case, someone’s overall health. This same narrow mindset is threatening our community’s well-being.
   By digging in heels and throwing up hands and saying that the time to speak up on these matters is long past and everyone’s hands are now tied, we will doom ourselves and our community to a fate that we all recognize is far less desirable than it could be. If not now, when?
   Our future doesn’t have to be industrial warehouses and an unbuilt school (with all sorts of unfortunate restrictions on how much water could be used, limits on lessons, and legal disclaimers sent home) surrounded by the same operations that led to the degradation of the current site in the first place.
   Just for a second, imagine instead what could be – an Indian Run School, surrounded by our community’s signature features of open space, farmland and streams. Instead of being stuck in a desperately unbuilt school, our children would be learning in the middle of the very same setting that brought and kept us here in the first place – our most cherished rural character. Immersed in our historical, agricultural and environmental heritage.
   As for practical considerations, more of our children would walk to Indian Run School, saving us transportation costs. And when the time came to expand or build again, we would already have the land and hook-up to Allentown’s sewer system (finally, a solution to our current wastewater delays).
   This is a land use application and referendum that the members of my community and I could truly get behind. The sooner, the better.
   Who says we can’t do better for our future than industrial warehouses and an unbuilt school?
   
Micah Rasmussen lives on Main Street in Allentown with his wife and 10-month old daughter. He served as press secretary for Governor James McGreevey.