Enchanted Valley in the Mayor's Sights?

Although El Picador's sources are generally reliable, occasional errors sometime slip through. When this occurs, El Picador makes it a policy to publish a correction ASAP. Veracity is everything here at the Picaresque. The last post had a couple of mistakes:

1. Most importantly, the P and Z meeting at which the medical laundry will be discussed is on MONDAY (not Tuesday), 3/12/2007 at 7PM at Village Hall. The P and Z usually meets on the first Tuesday of the month, but because there is an election that day, the date was moved up. So if you care about having filthy, disgusting soiled hospital linens piled high on 4th, mark your calendars with the corrected date.

2. El Picador has also been informed of another error in yesterday's post---the proposed location of the laundry. It is NOT proposed for the tortilla FLATS property south of Osuna, but rather for the tortilla FACTORY location on 4th and Enchanted Valley road.

Now, anyone who has followed village happenings of late knows that a number of active and vociferous opponents of the Mayor reside on Enchanted Valley Rd, just behind the factory. One of these individuals swears that the Mayor actually told him that the laundry was payback for the difficulties that he and others in the neighborhood had caused the administration by helping to organize opposition to the open space bond tax increase!

The residents of Enchanted Valley have long borne the brunt of the malfeasance and negligence of the village administration. A decade or more ago, then Mayor Harry Stowers rammed though a zone change to allow a huge (by village standards, where there is no manufacturing zone) tortilla factory to be built on a previously vacant lot. A big, ugly sheet metal building with minimal landscaping built right to the residential property line was erected almost overnight. All sorts of promises were made about buffering the impact to the neighbors, and the village pledged to enforce these. None were of course kept, and the noisy compressors from the factory ran night and day while huge semis used the little Enchanted Valley cul-de-sac to park and turn around---all assurances of the village and the factory owner to the contrary. Employees parked illegally and threw trash into adjacent yards. It was a mess.

The complaints of the neighbors fell on deaf ears during the Stowers years. The neighbors were persistent, however, and finally made life so miserable for the factory owner (dragging him into hearings at village hall and the like) that he finally gave up and moved the manufacturing away. The building has been used as a warehouse, with a little drive-through restaurant (incidentally prohibited by village zoning) since then.

Then Larry decided to purchase the land across the street for his Taj-Majal, multi-million dollar new fire station. The deal was consummated with essentially no public notice, and it pissed the Enchanted Valley folks off plenty. But Larry, like his corrupt and arrogant predecessor Stowers many years before, made the foolish decision to ignore the neighborhood and do whatever the hell he wanted. The neighbors have tried to fight back, but the rubber-stamp board of trustees, who NEVER cast a dissenting vote, have backed Larry all the way on this boondoggle and have turned a deaf ear to the pleas of their constituents.

And now this medical waste dump pops up-----at the old tortilla factory, smack dab in the front yards of Enchanted valley. Co-incidence? Or a heavy-handed attempt by someone to intimidate current and potential future opponents of the administration? You be the judge.

But El Picador puts his money on the perseverance of the Enchanted Valley neighborhood. And now they and many others have a chance to really hurt Larry at the ballot box this Tuesday.

Get out and vote 3/13 at Village hall, or lose your right to complain!!