To the editor:
What does the Fayetteville village planning and zoning boards have in common with the GOP and “The Apprentice?”
GOP defined: dates back to 1875, initially “Gallant Old Party,” then “Grand Old Party” (note “old”), also used to mean “Get Out and Push.” There is nothing “grand” or “gallant” about the current administration. “Get Out and Push” what? Is that what our president means when he says “Take Back America?” Push us back where … to 1875? Want to read by candlelight again, or “see” a forward-thinking administration? Or does “Get Out and Push” mean “get out, your fired!” as seen on the reality TV show, “The Apprentice,” featuring two teams competing with business-related tasks with one team being told “Your Fired!”
The recent opposition and challenges that both boards of the Village of Fayetteville (planning and zoning) continue to present to Pastificio (and other businesses), your organic restaurant located on Brooklea Drive, presents “food for thought.” And, if it isn’t hard enough to gain the funds to open a business and sustain it in Upstate New York, these boards feel the need to “blow out their chests” muscling their positions, and challenge their opponents as if in a weight lifting contest. Is the “reality” that your small businesses in Fayetteville are the “losing teams,” when facing your village boards?
Are these boards the “Grand Old Party Poopers” of Fayetteville challenging countless small businesses in Fayetteville? Balance can be achieved, but not with the current “black and white” views. Grey areas present themselves. We need flexibility and balance, and not “cookie-cutter” solutions, thus new board members with different, more progressive principles and values. These board member stereotypes have lost their relevance for your community and therefore, there is an opportunity to create a desire for new, fresh forward-thinkers who encourage, not discourage, a broad network of kindred spirits that will create a continued presence.
The current board members are killers of small business due to inflexible restrictions. Is there an entrepreneur on either board, or do they just consist of attorneys and corporate-based employees? Do these members ever visit a small business before making a decision? Or, do they sit at “the pulpit” from which they deliver a sermon, much like the tweeting done by our president?
Facts, not alternative truths for 2016: 1) Thirteen planning board meetings and not one meeting in full attendance; one to three members absent in every meeting. 2) Eight zoning board meetings and only one meeting in full attendance. 3) Without a full board to vote on an issue, a tie becomes “a deny.”
You, a resident of Fayetteville, need to own the success of businesses and help sustain these businesses that enhance your quality of life. Write to your Mayor Mark Olson, express your concern regarding changes to the current boards so you can embrace and support small business. Either the boards get “on board” to help small business in your community, so you are not “taken back” to another time, or you tell them “You’re Fired!”
L. Orcutt
Fayetteville
