I love America -

but I do NOT love politics. I went to yet another county commisioners meeting this morning - dragging along 2 children, in order to once again voice my opinion regarding some illegal mining that is happening directly behind my home. In summary - since most of you will have no idea what I'm talking about, there is a mining compnay that owns land up behind my house. The land is zoned CE-1 which is critical environment/agricultural watershed area. It is protected land and cannot be built on, mined, etc...
14 years ago, the mining comany (whom I am not naming on purpose, so that I can't be held liable for defamation or anything crazy like that) crossed over into the CE-1 zone. The county ordered them to cease mining, and issued a $7000 bond to insure the land would be relaimed. Nothing was ever enforced, and in the past 2 years, mining operations started up again.

As homeowners, we knew when we purchased our homes that there were gravel pits to the south of us, but were we assured that there was a large buffer zone that would keep the mining from encroaching to close to the neighborhood. We watched as the mining came closer and closer. we wondered at what point they would hit the imaginary line over which they couldn't cross (Little did we know that ALL of what we were seeing was in direct violation of the zoning ordinance.)

When we finally realized that they HAD to be over the line, we started contacting people in the city and county. In short, after and year and half of attending meeting after meeting - NOTHING is happening. Today they once again announced that they are going to 'continue' for 3 more weeks, meet in a closed session to discuss the matter, and then hopefully make a decision.

I am so sick and tired of this process. I am so frustrated and I want to blurt out all the mean and nasty things I want to say about one particular commissioner, and at the same time, I want to just forget all about it and wash my hands of the whole debacle. It just makes my blood boil. What is point of having all these laws if they aren't going to enforce them? What is the point of paying our elected officials to make and enforce the laws if they won't do it? ARRGGGHHHH!!! (can you tell what kind of mood I'M in right now???)

I suppose I should go work on something that I have some control over - namely my house that looks like a war zone... Thanks for listening. I'll let you know what happen in 3 weeks.