Vote yes to prevent further waste of funds

Dear Editor,

On March 8, county residents will at last have an opportunity to vote on the purchase of the Union Carbide site for a proposed spaceport. While the spaceport at first sounded like a great idea, no one can point to even one spaceport in the United States funded by local taxpayers that has even begun to deliver any of the promised benefits to those taxpayers.

Camden county has spent $10 million on consultants, options to purchase the land, travel, and space organization memberships for Steve Howard. If Howard is so confident of the benefits and the dazzling future of the spaceport, why does he continue to interview for jobs outside the county? Not to mention having to hire him an assistant county manager to perform his actual job while Howard flies around the country networking and fluffing up his resume.

While the actual landfill that costs half a million dollars a year to monitor is not part of the purchase, the contaminants on the portion of the property that we are planning to buy are not yet disclosed or discovered. All the environmental reports and surveys are not completed. How much will these add to the money we have already spent?

What will the cost of the $10 million environmental liability insurance that we will be obligated to purchase for Union Carbide cost us? Nobody seems to know. And if we need to insure them, common sense says we will need to insure the county as well. Are the commissioners figuring these costs into the mix? We can’t even get them to tell us the actual purchase price of the property.

When construction of the spaceport begins, what will it cost us to clean it up? When construction begins, we will be opening a Pandora’s box of troubles. Cleanup of contaminated properties can run into the millions of dollars, and I don’t want to think about how much our taxes will need to increase to pay for this neverending money pit.

Whether you believe that the spaceport is a glorious engine of prosperity for Camden County or a Unicorn Ranch, the purchase of contaminated land itself is the most important question. That is the only issue on the ballot. The county passed a resolution to purchase the property, and the vote is to repeal this resolution or not. So, if you are against purchasing this pig in a poke site for the spaceport or any other county project, vote yes on March 8. Judy Molnar

St. Marys