LETTER TO THE EDITOR - National Sunshine Week was recently celebrated on March 11-17, 2007. Sunshine Week is about the public’s right to know what its government is doing, and why. Sunshine Week seeks to enlightened and empower ordinary citizens to play an active role in their government at all levels, and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger.
While celebrating this non-partisan event it is often the time that is used to recognize and honor local citizens who best represent the spirit of Sunshine Week. These are often ordinary citizens who take time out from their busy lives to help shine light on corporate secrecy and exploitation and use the occasion to rally their fellow citizens’ awareness to the need for more open and transparent government.
As a regular reader and subscriber of the local Brookville newspaper I want to take this occasion, albeit somewhat belatedly, to recognize and honor two such local Franklin County citizens---Monica Yane and Ruth Hughes. I also enthusiastically refer the reader to their recent “letters to the editor” in the March 28, 2007 issue of this newspaper.
Yane informed county residents of REK’s plans to run a dangerously thin 42” pipeline, through Franklin County, which if damaged, could produce a blast radius containing 29 acres of otherwise rich, pure, fertile and living earth. Such a blast would sulk out the oxygen from the atmosphere for miles around.
Hughes presented succinctly the ever present danger that such a gas pipeline presents not by using hypothetical scenarios, but by using a real toxic spill not more than a few miles south from this county seat. She urgently reminds the readers who reside in this beautiful and rich forested county that “topsoil is a delicate eco system all by itself. It takes years to happen. It can’t simply be trucked out and replaced.” She might have added that such land once contaminated is not expendable. Once lost, it is loss for ever.
Hughes goes on to warn us that, “REX does not want the general public to know what they are up to.” She points out the need for County Commission’s meetings to include both when they are meeting along with the agenda. Citizens who wish to speak at these public meetings must sign up ahead of time and therefore need to be made aware in advance of the Commission’s planned business agenda.
Again I commend Monica Yane and Ruth Hughes for their courageous investigative reporting, their heartbreaking defense of planet earth, their commitment to freedom of information, and to our freedom of the press. I would only also remind our readers that they have a right upon request to access the County Commissioner’s meeting minutes and any e-mails associated with such public meetings.
Finally, may I urge all residents of Franklin County that wish to hand down to their grand children and their children, a clean, safe and “living” environment, to contact their local and state representatives now before it is too late, and say, “We won’t take this anymore.”
