Letter: Not happy with Boosters

Dear Editor,

While the Boosters invade Hudson Township with promises of a $1.8 million dollar “Premier Ball Park”, the reality of their proposal is becoming apparent as they testify before public bodies. On July 18, the “final” site plan was submitted to the Hudson Planning Commission for approval.

It was evident that the Boosters have used every square inch of the 21-acre site to cram in four ball fields, parking for 260 cars, a 300-seat bleacher and a 10,000-square-foot building. However, they didn’t have room for many things. These items include:

1. No access from Hwy. 12 or standard access from the north side of the property at all. No, the Boosters need a retention pond on the north side of the parking lot, so who has room for a frontage road?

2. No access from Badlands Road to the south, so let’s just get a permanent easement from Trinity Church. This “driveway easement” only cuts across the best part of Trinity’s land and is not wide enough to be made into a public road.

3. No money to pave the driveway easement or the parking lot! The $1.8 million budget has no paving money so the neighbors will just have to eat dust until some five-plus years after opening, when “funding permits”.

4. No room to get a fire truck to the 10,000-square-foot building tucked into the middle of the site. “Good point,” said the Boosters “Maybe the walking paths could be widened to allow access?”

5. No significant landscaping or buffering. The Boosters actually testified that the existing corn field to the north acts as a buffer now. (Guess they don’t know that corn gets harvested).

6. Continued inaccurate testimony that the eight-story lights are “exactly like” the middle school lights. This is completely untrue and totally contradictory to the testimony of their own lighting expert given at the July 5th public hearing. (This “lighting technology” fabrication is the ongoing BIG LIE on their part).

7. No room for public comment. The Planning Chair actually maintained it was a meeting for the commission members and applicant only, no public testimony was allowed. Who needs neighborhood questions?

It’s time for the Boosters to put words to their intent: “We intend to win at all costs and bend every rule! It’s about community pride you know!”

Tags: town of hudson, opinion, letters