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DEAR EDITOR:
This is in regards to a recent Vindicator letter about Youngstown's East Side.
An initiative on Eastgate Regional Council of Government's website answers the writer's questions. It's called "YES Streets Initiative" and can be found here: https://eastgatecog.org/projects/transportation-infrastructure/yes-streets-initiative#.
The group responsible for this initiative is Mahoning Valley Partnership, self-appointed leaders collaborating to improve quality of life through local economic development. This project provides much-needed help to address issues. Throughout my life, I've seen increasingly more intrusion into local government by non-elected officials. I feel this trend leads us from original forms of government.
Regionalization or sharing certain resources / services among communities can provide effective ways to operate more efficiently. But the trend toward involving NGOs, nonprofits, etc., potentially leads to loss of sovereignty. The more widespread their involvement becomes, and communities impacted have no recourse if a plan goes sideways because they can't vote out someone they never voted in. Part of the sales pitch included in the white paper submitted for the YES initiative was focused on the plan to rectify damage done by initial construction of the Madison Avenue expressway in terms of dividing neighborhoods by reconstructing it to allow for traffic to cross the new version. No apologies were included to families displaced with another of their projects (SMART2) because of construction of the "Technology Center" to be housed in the Chill Can facility or to downtown business owners who suffered as that project disrupts life in the city.
Acquiring landowners' property by eminent domain usually causes unnecessary hardships for many landowners. It often can be traced to NGOs like regional planners. Can a planned change be beneficial to the majority of stakeholders involved and disruptive to just a few? Sure, but the current bike trail case involving several property owners and the MetroParks is a good example of a plan that need not affect those owners due to an alternative that exists. Much disruption we see in our world can be traced to United Nations and has everything to do with planning. A property appraiser named Rosa Koire, whose career involved eminent domain valuation issues for California, wrote about her career in "Behind the Green Mask UN Agenda 21." It documents the plan utilizing the American Planning Association to help implement practices we see take place throughout our communities. She also spoke to many planning groups before she died. Many of her presentations can be found online.
Most information on these community 'economic development' projects is available, but you have to look for it to stay informed. I'm not against progress, but I grew up in the Mahoning Valley and paid attention and saw many more promises broken than kept.
BOB BERO
Lowellville