Grievances over ECC; AEHI rezone

Dear editor:

I would like to continue my thoughts from last Wednesday's Elmore County Commissioner's (ECC) meeting regarding AEHI's rezone application.

There are a few things that the public might not be aware of that as a former planning and zoning commission member I do know. For the record I resigned mostly from my frustration with the ECC. I feel they are very irresponsible with our future and most of their decisions are not based on what's best for us as a county but on what is best for each of them either financially or politically.

The ECC has tried very hard to discount Mr. Pecchenino as fraudulent or dishonest. I worked with Mr. Pecchenino on a weekly basis as a P&Z Commission Member re-writing the Elmore County Ordinance. His advice, drive and ambition was sincere and very professional in my opinion. He recommended many improvements in our ordinance, none of which made things easier or less strict. He tightened up the regulations, made rules to hold residents more accountable and the county more accountable for their actions. The obvious thing that comes to my mind is if he had ulterior motives don't you think he would have had AEHI hold off until the ordinance was passed. By the way, the ordinance that he and ECC pushed us to complete is still sitting on ECC's desk awaiting approval and has been awaiting approval for nearly a year now. What else is new, but back to the point. Although Mr. Pecchenino has chosen to work with AEHI it is fact that he was not on Elmore County's payroll when he did hire with AEHI. Perception means a lot but fact means so much more. Please research your facts before believing what you hear at the coffee shop.

At AEHI's re-zone hearing last Wednesday Mr. Larry Rose was clearly uptight about keeping the hearing limited to the re-zone itself. His immature explosion at this meeting to the applicant is what sparked my comments to him that night and my follow on now.

On the re-zone application you have to disclose what your project is. I believe you must, at the very minimum, hear what the project consists of. Now something this big one would think the ECC would want to know "who" is backing it, "what" their intentions are, and "when" they plan to implement it. You know, "the "who", "what", and "when", the meat and potatoes of the million dollar project." Because Mr. Rose continually interrupted the applicants very little was conveyed to the public. Was this his intention? I am guessing so. From my experience with Mr. Rose is the less you know as the public the less you can hold him accountable for.

Finally I want to note that Mr. Rose admitted to have extensive ex-parte' contact. In laymen's terms that means he has engaged in many conversations regarding this application. I am betting not one of those conversations was just based on the REZONE! In my opinion he should have recused himself from this hearing altogether, that would have been the moral thing to do.

Please contact your ECC right away and let them know that we need this re-zone to happen in order for our futures to be lucrative and successful. This is the most exciting opportunity Elmore County has had since the Air Force Base and railroad!

Oh, and by the way the ECC had more than enough information to make a decision last Wednesday, maybe they need to be more prepared in the future.

It will be at least another month and another public hearing for them to deliver a decision.

This is holding up our economy if they were to step up to the plate and approve this re-zone as AEHI plans to proceed with what they legally can the minute the Facts and Findings Report is complete.

Courtney Ireland

(Ireland is a former Elmore County Planning and Zoning member)